Some US lawmakers call for more scrutiny of news app NewsBreak over Chinese origins
WASHINGTON/LONDON -Three U.S. lawmakers have called for more scrutiny of NewsBreak, a popular news aggregation app in the United States after Reuters reported it has Chinese origins and has used artificial intelligence tools to produce erroneous stories.
"This is yet another example of the serious threat posed by technologies from countries of concern. It’s also a stark reminder that we need a holistic approach to addressing this threat – we simply cannot win the game of whack-a-mole with individual companies," he said. NewsBreak launched in the U.S. in 2015 as a subsidiary of Yidian, a Chinese news aggregation app. Both companies were founded by Jeff Zheng, the CEO of NewsBreak, and the companies share a U.S. patent registered in 2015 for an"Interest Engine" algorithm, which recommends news content based on a user's interests and location, Reuters reported.
Americans have the right to"full transparency" about any connections to the CCP from news distributors, Krishnamoorthi added, particularly with regards to the use of"opaque algorithms" and artificial intelligence tools to produce news. "We cannot allow our foreign adversaries access to American citizen's data to weaponize them against America’s interests," she said.
A spokesperson for Francisco Partners, which has previously declined to answer questions from Reuters on their investment in NewsBreak, described the story as"false and misleading," but declined to provide details beyond saying the description of them as a"primary backer" of NewsBreak was incorrect because their investment was less than 10%.
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