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HONG KONG, July 12 (Reuters) - China's major tech companies have shed more than $1 trillion in value -equivalent to the entire Dutch economy - since the government's regulatory crackdown on the sector began more than two years ago, according to Refinitiv data. Reuters GraphicsTechnology stocks (.HSTECH) in Hong Kong have rallied 4.1% since Monday as investors bank on an easing regulatory environment to boost earnings, but some analysts have sounded a note of caution. "Mega-cap tech companies will allocate increasingly large amounts of capital expenditure towards developing generative AI technologies and products in a hostile external environment, potentially impacting profitability," said Redmond Wong, Saxo Markets strategist in Hong Kong. Steven Leung, UOB Kay Hian sales director, said current valuations would last "until we see more supporting policies from authorities". Reporting by Donny Kwok in Hong Kong and Scott Murdoch in Sydney; Editing by Kevin LiffeyOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Tencent, Redmond Wong, Steven Leung, UOB Kay Hian, Donny Kwok, Scott Murdoch, Kevin Liffey Organizations: People's Bank of China, Tencent Holdings, HK, Alibaba, Baidu Inc, Reuters Graphics Technology, Saxo Markets, Thomson Locations: HONG KONG, Hong Kong, Sydney

☆ ‘Be prepared for the worst’: Here are 4 tips on surviving long job interviews — and how to ace them
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-05 | by ( Goh Chiew Tong | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Economic uncertainty has resulted in not just layoffs and hiring freezes — job interviews are also getting longer. Richard Lambert Resume and workplace expertAs long interviews become more commonplace, job seekers need to adapt to this process of jumping through more hoops. Here are four tips for long interview processes — and nailing them:1. Clarify expectationsLong job interviews can be frustrating, but that can be managed if you first seek clarity on the road ahead. "Even if you are far down the interview process for a role you should always be looking for other roles.

Persons: Richard Lambert, I've, " Lambert, They're, Lambert, Steven Leitch, Leitch, Samaraweera Organizations: Research, CNBC

☆ Federal Judge Limits Biden Officials’ Contacts With Social Media Sites
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-04 | by ( Steven Lee Myers | David Mccabe | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A federal judge in Louisiana on Tuesday restricted parts of the Biden administration from communicating with social media platforms about broad swaths of content online, a ruling that could curtail efforts to combat false and misleading narratives about the coronavirus pandemic and other issues. The ruling, which could have significant First Amendment implications, is a major development in a fierce legal fight over the boundaries and limits of speech online. Republicans have often accused the government of inappropriately working with social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to censor critics and say the platforms disproportionately take down right-leaning content. Democrats say the platforms have failed to adequately police misinformation and hateful speech, leading to dangerous outcomes, including violence. In the ruling, Judge Terry A. Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana said that parts of the government, including the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, could not talk to social media companies for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

Persons: Biden, Judge Terry A, Doughty, ” Organizations: Republicans, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, U.S, Western, Western District of, Department of Health, Human Services, Federal Bureau of Locations: Louisiana, Western District, Western District of Louisiana

☆ Job interviews are getting longer — here’s why it could be a red flag
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-30 | by ( Goh Chiew Tong | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Experts that CNBC Make It spoke to said they've observed a "significant increase" in the number of job seekers facing an extended interview process over the past year. That makes a total of 9 interviews, for a job that 32-year-old Ayomi Samaraweera said she did not eventually get. But the growing phenomenon of lengthy interviews reflects the highly competitive nature of the current job market, he added. "That's why recruiters are haphazardly adding steps to the interview process and it's a terrible candidate experience." "How a company presents itself during the interview process is very telling about the company culture as a whole," she added.

Persons: they've, That's, Samaraweera, Steven Leitch, Josh Bersin, Jim Sykes, Leitch, Richard Lambert, Amy Zimmerman, Monica Revuelta Organizations: CNBC, Josh Bersin Company, AMS, Jim Sykes Global

☆ A.I.’s Use in Elections Sets Off a Scramble for Guardrails
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-25 | by ( Tiffany Hsu | Steven Lee Myers | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Increasingly, political consultants, election researchers and lawmakers say setting up new guardrails, such as legislation reining in synthetically generated ads, should be an urgent priority. The Republican National Committee released a video with artificially generated images of doomsday scenarios after President Biden announced his re-election bid, while Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida posted fake images of former President Donald J. Trump with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former health official. The Democratic Party experimented with fund-raising messages drafted by artificial intelligence in the spring — and found that they were often more effective at encouraging engagement and donations than copy written entirely by humans. The technology is already far more powerful than manual manipulation — not perfect, but fast improving and easy to learn.

Persons: Biden, Ron DeSantis, Donald J, Trump, Anthony Fauci, Sam Altman Organizations: Republican National Committee, Gov, Democratic Locations: Florida

☆ The cult of Emily Oster
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-22 | by ( Sarah Todd | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +30 min

Emily Oster is sitting in the back of a car, checking her Garmin watch as we lurch through rush-hour traffic toward the Holland Tunnel. A self-described expert in data, Oster uses her economics training to dig into studies on things like circumcision and screen time and translate them for popular consumption. There doesn't seem to be much of a gap between the way Oster presents herself in her books and newsletters and the way she conducts her life. Unsurprisingly, economics informs every aspect of the way Oster sees the world. When Oster was a toddler, her mother told a Yale colleague that Oster often talked to herself before falling asleep.

Persons: Emily Oster, doesn't, Oster, Taylor Swift, Spock, —, Mandy Moore, Emily DiDonato, Amy Schumer, " Oster, Emily, Aisha McAdams, Claudia Goldin, who's, Lori Feldman, " Feldman, Winter, It's, reopenings, Timothy Caulfield, Oster's Brown, OSTER, She's, Sheryl Sandberg's, Brown, Denis Tangney Jr, graham, Eminem, Sharon Oster, Ray Fair, Jesse Shapiro, Katherine Nelson, Carl, Choate Rosemary Hall, John F, Kennedy, Glenn Close, Ivanka Trump, Goldin, Steven Levitt —, Oster —, Paul Farmer, Steven Levitt, Oster's, Levitt, Robert Barro, demographer Monica Das Gupta, Joseph Delaney, she'd, I've, Matt Notowidigdo, Chicago Booth, hadn't, Udo Salters, Patrick McMullan, Shapiro, Jessica Calarco, Dr, Anthony Fauci, Donald Trump, Calarco, Rochelle Walensky, Delaney, University of Manitoba epidemiologist, Abigail Cartus, Justin Feldman, Delivette Castor, they're, COVID, Castor, Notowidigdo, Carter, you'd, she's, there's Organizations: Garmin, Brown University, New York Times, American Academy of Pediatrics, Yorker, Yale School of Management, Yale, Harvard, Connecticut, Choate, University of Chicago, Forbes, Wall, Publicly, University of Manitoba, Getty, Oster, Centers for Disease Control, Columbia University, Harvard Business School Locations: Holland, Montclair , New Jersey, Montclair, Harvard, Providence , Rhode Island, New Haven , Connecticut, China, Canada, Chicago, Ohio, New Jersey

☆ G.O.P. Targets Researchers Who Study Disinformation Ahead of 2024 Election
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-19 | by ( Steven Lee Myers | Sheera Frenkel | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On Capitol Hill and in the courts, Republican lawmakers and activists are mounting a sweeping legal campaign against universities, think tanks and private companies that study the spread of disinformation, accusing them of colluding with the government to suppress conservative speech online. The effort has encumbered its targets with expansive requests for information and, in some cases, subpoenas — demanding notes, emails and other information related to social media companies and the government dating back to 2015. Complying has consumed time and resources and already affected the groups’ ability to do research and raise money, according to several people involved. They and others warned that the campaign undermined the fight against disinformation in American society when the problem is, by most accounts, on the rise — and when another presidential election is around the corner. Many of those behind the Republican effort had also joined former President Donald J. Trump in falsely challenging the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

Persons: Donald J, Trump, “, ”, Jameel Jaffer Organizations: Capitol, Republican, Columbia University’s

☆ Extremism Finds Fertile Ground in Chat Rooms for Gamers
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Steven Lee Myers | Kellen Browning | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There are rules people must agree to before joining Unloved, a private discussion group on Discord, the messaging service popular among players of video games. They share some harmless memes but also joke about school shootings and debate the attractiveness of women of different races. Users in the group — known as a server on Discord — can enter smaller rooms for voice or text chats. The name for one of the rooms refers to rape. In the vast and growing world of gaming, views like these have become easy to come across, both within some games themselves and on social media services and other sites, like Discord and Steam, used by many gamers.

☆ Another Side of the A.I. Boom: Detecting What A.I. Makes
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Tiffany Hsu | Steven Lee Myers | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Andrey Doronichev was alarmed last year when he saw a video on social media that appeared to show the president of Ukraine surrendering to Russia. The video was quickly debunked as a synthetically generated deepfake, but to Mr. Doronichev, it was a worrying portent. This year, his fears crept closer to reality, as companies began competing to enhance and release artificial intelligence technology despite the havoc it could cause. For entrepreneurs like Mr. Doronichev, it has also become a business opportunity. More than a dozen companies now offer tools to identify whether something was made with artificial intelligence, with names like Sensity AI (deepfake detection), Fictitious.AI (plagiarism detection) and Originality.AI (also plagiarism).

☆ Opinion: Mitch McConnell’s confidence is being put to the test
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-14 | by ( Richard Galant | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +17 min

We’re looking back at the strongest, smartest opinion takes of the week from CNN and other outlets. Not to worry, said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a veteran of debt limit battles. McConnell’s reassurance that all will work out in the end is validated by history, but that doesn’t mean this time couldn’t be different. “If female voters are key to a Donald Trump victory in 2024, the former president should be in big trouble – but he doesn’t seem to care,” Jill Filipovic observed. “The town hall audience – selected on the basis of their intention to vote in the Republican primary in New Hampshire – appeared to be made up mostly of Trump fans.

☆ Bitcoin rises slightly after key inflation data comes in better than feared
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Tanaya Macheel | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Bitcoin prices have been under pressure in 2022 after the collapse of algorithmic stablecoin terraUSD and subsequent bankruptcy filings from lender Celsius and hedge fund Three Arrows Capital. Bitcoin rose about 2% to $28,174.29, according to Coin Metrics, after starting the week with a sharp drop. Investors grew optimistic after the CPI report showed the inflation rate eased on an annual basis to 4.9% in April, which was slightly less than what economists polled by Dow Jones expected. "When it comes to inflation data, bitcoin embraces its identity as a riskier asset," said Callie Cox, an analyst at investment company eToro. "Inflation is coming down, just as the Fed intended, and that's easing fears about the economy's future," she added.

☆ Opinion: Clarence Thomas’ inability to fill out forms properly defies belief
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Opinion Steven Lubet | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has had to explain decades of omissions on his annual financial reports. As a Supreme Court justice, Thomas routinely interprets complex statutes that affect millions of Americans, priding himself on close adherence to the text. It beggars belief that he could repeatedly misinterpret plain statutory requirements and simple instructions on his annual disclosure reports. Supreme Court justices have life tenure. That is why full compliance with financial disclosure laws is so important, and why Thomas’ evasiveness is so wrong.

☆ New Defamation Suit Against Fox Signals Continued Legal Threat
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Jim Rutenberg | Steven Lee Myers | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Fox News was hit on Wednesday with another defamation lawsuit, this one from a woman who said the network promoted lies about her that generated serious threats to her safety and harmed her career prospects. The suit was filed on behalf of Nina Jankowicz, the former executive director of a short-lived Department of Homeland Security division assigned with coordinating efforts to monitor and address disinformation threats to national security. Right-wing pundits and politicians falsely portrayed her group as part of an Orwellian bid to control the speech and thought of ordinary Americans. Ms. Jankowicz, a prominent specialist in Russian disinformation and online harassment, became the primary subject of their attacks. In 300 mentions over eight months on Fox last year, she was repeatedly demeaned and defamed in highly personal language, the lawsuit asserts.

☆ Google Promised to Defund Climate Lies, but the Ads Keep Coming
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Nico Grant | Steven Lee Myers | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In October 2021, Google promised to stop placing ads alongside content that denied the existence and causes of climate change, so that purveyors of the false claims could no longer make money on its platforms, including YouTube. And yet if you recently clicked on a YouTube video titled “who is Leonardo DiCaprio,” you might have found a ramble of claims that climate change is a hoax and the world is cooling after a Paramount+ ad for the film “80 for Brady,” starring Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Sally Field and Rita Moreno. Before another video that purported to detail “how climate activists distort the evidence,” some users saw an ad for Alaska Airlines. These are not aberrations, according to a coalition of environmental organizations and the Center for Countering Digital Hate. In a report released on Tuesday, researchers from the organizations accused YouTube of continuing to profit from videos that portrayed the changing climate as a hoax or exaggeration.

☆ China’s Search Engines Have More Than 66,000 Rules Controlling Content, Report Says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Steven Lee Myers | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

China’s internet censorship is well known, but a report has quantified the extent of it, uncovering more than 66,000 rules controlling the content that is available to people using search engines. The most diligent censor, by at least one measure, is Microsoft’s search engine Bing, the only foreign search engine operating in the country, according to the report, which was released on Wednesday by the Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity research group at the University of Toronto. The findings suggested that China’s censorship apparatus had become not only more pervasive, but also more subtle. The search engines, including Bing, have created algorithms to “hard censor” searches deemed to be politically sensitive by providing no results or by limiting the results to selected sources, which are usually government agencies or state news organizations that follow the Communist Party’s line. “You’re getting results only from certain pre-authorized websites.”

Mr. Boerman said he had tried hard to leave obvious hints that he was an impersonator. He made up an organization with a ludicrous name: the New York City Porcine Benevolent Association. “Pretty much everybody got that it was a joke immediately, which was my hope — I wasn’t trying to mislead anyone,” Mr. Boerman said. “The problem comes when you have accounts that maybe have hundreds of thousands of followers and are positioning themselves as the real thing,” Mr. Boerman said. “Twitter’s approach of ‘Well, if people pay for verification, certainly they must be legit’ is so inane I don’t even know how to put words to it.”

On that unredacted form, Kacsmaryk reported owning about $2.9 million in stock in the Florida-based supermarket company Publix. Federal judges are only required to report financial holdings in ranges, and don’t have to provide exact figures. One possible source of the Publix stock Kacsmaryk reported in 2017 is the judge’s grandmother. In 2020 and 2021, less than 4% of officials required to file judicial financial disclosures requested redaction, according to reports from the Administrative Office of the US Courts. In any case, experts said, the judge’s redacted report prevents transparency that litigants deserve.

☆ NHL roundup: Knights wrap up West's No. 1 seed
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +12 min

Reilly Smith, Alec Martinez and Chandler Stephenson scored for the Golden Knights (51-22-9, 111 points), who closed the regular season with an eight-game points streak (5-0-3). Liam O'Brien led the Coyotes with a pair of goals and Nick Schmaltz and added a goal and an assist. The Stars, who are looking to win a division title for the first time since the 2015-16 campaign, are atop the division. The Bruins set NHL records for most wins and most points in a single season. Tage Thompson scored his 47th goal of the season for Buffalo, which improved to 8-2-1 over its last 11 games.

☆ China developer Sunac shares plunge after year-long suspension ends
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

HONG KONG, April 13 (Reuters) - Chinese property developer Sunac China Holdings Ltd's (1918.HK) shares fell 45% on Thursday morning after resuming trade following a suspension of more than a year as it looks to restructure its debt after a default. The share slump comes a day after the company said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange that it was to resume trading and was implementing a debt restructuring plan. Shares were down by nearly 60% in pre-market trading but trimmed losses after the market opened. Sunac is among many Chinese developers that defaulted last year as the property sector reeled under a debt crisis. Earlier this month, the Hong Kong stock exchange cancelled the listing of Chinese developer Cinic Holdings after it failed to meet trading resumption requirements in the time allotted.

☆ Can We No Longer Believe Anything We See?
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-08 | by ( Tiffany Hsu | Steven Lee Myers | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Authoritarian governments have created seemingly realistic news broadcasters to advance their political goals. Last month, some people fell for images showing Pope Francis donning a puffy Balenciaga jacket and an earthquake devastating the Pacific Northwest, even though neither of those events had occurred. The images had been created using Midjourney, a popular image generator. If any image can be manufactured — and manipulated — how can we believe anything we see? Plug in a text description, and the technology can produce a related image — no special skills required.

☆ NHL roundup: Stars rally, but Flames pull out late win
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Nazem Kadri, Jonathan Huberdeau and MacKenzie Weegar each collected two assists, and goalie Jacob Markstrom made 29 saves. Sharks 3, Jets 2 (OT)Logan Couture scored in overtime after assisting on Tomas Hertl's late game-tying goal as San Jose outlasted host Winnipeg. Senators goalie Mads Sogaard made 16 saves on 21 shots after being pressed into action when Cam Talbot was scratched due to a lower-body injury. Kings 4, Capitals 2Adrian Kempe had a goal and an assist for Los Angeles in a win against visiting Washington. Luke Evangelista scored two goals and Colton Sissons also scored for the Predators, whose two-game win streak ended.

☆ NHL roundup: Bruins become fastest to 100 points
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

With their ninth consecutive win, the Bruins improved to 48-8-5 on the season and became the fastest team in NHL history to record 100 points, doing so in 61 games. Charlie Coyle, Brandon Carlo and David Krejci each recorded two assists while Patrice Bergeron and Connor Clifton also scored goals. Casey Mittelstadt scored the lone goal and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 35 saves for the Sabres, who dropped their second straight. The Lightning are 2-3-3 in their past eight games and have lost three straight for the first time. The Stars gave goalie Matt Murray his NHL debut, and he finished with 19 saves for the win.

☆ The 'office apocalypse' won't doom big cities — it's actually making them stronger
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Matthew E. Kahn | Christopher Okada | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

In San Francisco, tax revenue is projected to drop by as much as a billion dollars over the next six years. In order to bring in these new residents, cities will have to shift some of their priorities. Research coauthored by Steven Levitt of "Freakonomics" found that increases in violent and property crimes were correlated with city residents migrating to the suburbs. All is not lostThere's little doubt that superstar cities like New York and San Francisco have serious problems on their hands. Christopher Okada is the CEO of Okada & Company, a full-service commercial real estate brokerage and investment company in New York City.

☆ Hedge funds unimpressed by Chinese internet giants' peppy earnings
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Summer Zhen | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

HONG KONG, Feb 28 (Reuters) - A set of bumper earnings reports from the likes of Baidu Inc and other Chinese internet giants isn't impressing hedge funds and other investors who have cut exposure to the stocks and seem to be waiting for more good news. Despite easily beating expectations for their earnings and giving optimistic forecasts for the recovery in demand, shares in both companies fell. Mark Dong, co-founder of Minority Asset Management, who is based in Hong Kong, says expectations for Chinese growth are clouded by doubts over how Beijing plans to stimulate the economy and deal with external risks. The internet sector index (.H11137) nearly doubled between late-October and January but has since fallen 20%. Global hedge funds such as Bridgewater Associates, Tiger Asset Management and Coatue Management are big holders of China internet stocks, which makes the sector more vulnerable to the global economic cycle and geopolitical tensions.

☆ Hong Kong adds security law clauses to land sales, property stocks drop
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

"Safeguarding national security is the shared responsibility by the entire Hong Kong society," the Development Bureau told Reuters, confirming the media report. Hong Kong Economic Times reported that Hong Kong authorities began to include applicable provisions of the National Security Law in the terms of land sales and short-term leases in the Asia financial hub. That sent Hong Kong property stocks index (.HSNP) down as much as 4.9% to the lowest in six weeks, compared to a 0.1% slip in the benchmark Hang Seng Index (.HSI). "It suggests that developers will be even more cautious in putting a bid in land sale," said Steven Leung, a sales director at UOB Kay Hian. Hong Kong and Chinese authorities say it is necessary to restore stability after anti-government protests in 2019.

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