Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey retweeted a Twitter account that was identified as being created by the Kremlin, according to the Daily Beast.
The account, @Crystal1Johnson, tweeted mostly positive and encouraging stories, but then would occasionally tweet "inflammatory stories about Hillary Clinton," the Beast reports. This played into the method of other Russian propaganda accounts, in which they would build an audience with shareable content, and were then "weaponized for divisive political messages."
Why it matters: This follows a string of instances in which Russia created fake accounts on Twitter for influence. Dorsey's retweets prove "just how pervasive Russian propaganda became on major American social media platforms," per the Daily Beast.
Apple is issuing a cellular settings update that will allow iPhones to activate the currently unused Band 8 to access the Loon-based service. It's the second time Project Loon has been activated to assist with an emergency (the first was in Peru) and the first time Loon has been used in the U.S. The FCC earlier granted temporary approval for Loon to operate in Puerto Rico.
Why it matters: Connectivity and power remain major challenges for Puerto Rico and communications are seen as a necessary starting point for other parts of recovery and rebuilding to move forward. Without cellular service, even first responders and humanitarian groups are forced to use pricey satellite phones.
Snapchat parent company Snap has laid off employees as it slows its growth heading into 2018, Business Insider reports. The company has grown fast over the past two years: it had 600 employees at the end of 2015 and ended last quarter with 2,600.
Why it matters: Snap believes the company has reached a size that is functioning well, so it is reducing its rate of hiring and therefore cutting some staff recruiter roles. The company said it will continue to hire aggressively in engineering and sales roles, but the overall pace of those hires will also slow next year.
BuzzFeed News' Charlie Warzel finds that employees at Facebook feel the company doesn't deserve to be the focus of the deepening crisis of Russian election meddling online, especially after critics previously hit the company for censoring content. "There are lots inside thinking, 'We're the victims,'" one source told him, and that the company is "just a battlefield in a greater misinformation campaign."
Go deeper: The whole story is worth reading to get a sense of what the mood is like inside the secretive company.
In a morning tweet, President Trump tied increasing crime rates in the United Kingdom to the "spread of Radical Islamic terror" after the country suffered a series of terror attacks in 2017:
Fact check: While the U.K.'s Office of National Statistics annual crime report did indeed mark a 13% year-on-year increase in crime, it barely mentions terrorism. The portion of the report likely to cause more concern across the pond: a notable increase in violent crimes like knife attacks and sexual assaults over the past year, per The Guardian.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel proposed on Wednesday a tax on ride-hailing companies, the revenue from which would be exclusively invested into the city's public transit. The proposal is for a a $0.15 fee in 2018, increasing to $0.20 in 2019, added on top of an existing fee of $0.52. If it passes, this will be the first ride-hailing fee in a U.S. city dedicated to a city's public transit.
Why it matters: Questions over ride-hailing's impact on public transit have persisted over the years. Last week, researchers published a study that showed that services like Uber and Lyft have led to a 6% decline in public transit use by respondents. Still, the companies have continued to say that they want to be a partner to public transit systems in cities.
