YouTube has temporarily barred Russia Today (RT) and a handful of other Russian channels from earning ad revenue. Citing “extraordinary circumstances” and the recent sanctions against the country, the company told Reuters it was putting a pause on the ability of several channels to monetize their content on the platform.

Additionally, YouTube said videos from those content creators would appear less frequently in user recommendations, and that RT and a handful of other channels would no longer be accessible in Ukraine following a request from the country’s government. YouTube did not provide Reuters with a full list of the restricted channels. We’ve reached out to the company for comment and more information.

It’s hard to say how much of an effect the restrictions will have on those channels. In 2019, internet research firm Omelas estimated the Kremlin generated $27 million in ad revenue between 2017 and 2018. Over the span of a 12 year period, Russia has earned as much as $73 million in YouTube ad revenue from RT and other state-affiliated channels. 

The move follows similar ones from Facebook and Twitter. On Friday, Nathaniel Gleicher, Meta’s head of security policy, said the company was prohibiting Russian state media from running ads or using any other monetization features in response to the invasion of Ukraine. That same day, Twitter said it was suspending all advertising in Ukraine and Russia to better highlight authoritative information and combat misinformation.

Valve says it’s willing to work with Microsoft to bring PC Game Pass to Steam. “I don’t think it’s something that we think we need to do ourselves, building a subscription service at this time,” Valve CEO Gabe Newell told PC Gamer in a recent interview. “But for their customers it’s clearly a popular option, and we’d be more than happy to work with them to get that on Steam.”

Newell’s subsequent comments suggest PC Game Pass won’t come to Steam anytime soon, but that the two companies have had discussions about the possibility. “We’ve talked to people there quite a bit about that topic,” he said. “If your customers want it, then you should figure out how to make it happen. That’s where we’re at.”

While PC Game Pass may never come to Steam there’s at least precedent for Microsoft to follow. In the summer of 2020, publisher Electronic Arts made EA Play, its subscription service, available on Steam. It's worth noting, as The Verge points out, not every EA Play tier is available through the marketplace, and Valve's 30 percent cut of sales could be a contentious issue in any negotiations between itself and Microsoft. For what it's worth, Microsoft has also expressed an interest in getting Steam onto the Windows 11 app store. Last June, Microsoft’s Panos Panay said Valve would be “very welcome” on the marketplace.

On Saturday morning, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine entered its third day, some of the country’s official government websites went down following a series of alleged cyberattacks. Among the sites that aren’t accessible as of the writing of this article include that of the Kremlin and the country’s Ministry of Defence. Several Twitter accounts claiming affiliation with Anonymous say the international hacking collective is behind the attacks.

“Faced with this series of attacks that Ukraine has been suffering from the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, we could not help but support the Ukrainian people,” said one account. At the start of the conflict, the group said it would launch a “cyber war against the Russian government.” However, the Kremlin has denied Anonymous is behind the attacks, according to CNN.

It’s believed Anonymous is also responsible for hacking several Russian state TV channels. People have uploaded videos showing those channels playing Ukrainian music and displaying images of the country’s flag and other nationalistic symbols. 

The collective has also pledged to “keep the Ukrainian people online as best we can,” even as the invasion takes a heavy toll on the country's internet infrastructure. While there hasn’t been a widespread blackout, some parts of Ukraine, particularly those areas where fighting has been the most intense, have seen greatly diminished access. That's something that has prevented people from staying in touch with their loved ones.

Russia has moved to restrict access to Twitter as its invasion of Ukraine continues. Starting early Saturday morning, internet monitor NetBlocks saw a nearly complete blackout of the platform across all major domestic telecom providers, including Rostelecom and MTS. For the time being, Russian residents and those visiting the country can still access Twitter using VPN services but reaching the website directly is nearly impossible.

Twitter confirmed the reports at 11:51AM ET. “We’re aware that Twitter is being restricted for some people in Russia and are working to keep our service safe and accessible,” the company said.

At the moment, Russians can reportedly still access Facebook and Instagram, but that may change. On Friday, the country’s telecom regulator, Roskomnadzor, began partially restricting access to Facebook after Meta refused to stop fact-checking and labeling content from state-owned news organizations. At the time, Roskomnadzor accused Facebook of violating “the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens.”

It’s unclear why Russia has moved to block Twitter, but all the videos of the conflict you see on the platform may have played a part in the decision. For instance, Russia claims its airstrikes haven’t targeted civilian infrastructure, but several widely circulated videos appear to show otherwise. Those clips and others would appear to paint a picture of the invasion that is quite different from the one Russian-state media has pushed. 

"Russia's restriction of Twitter will significantly limit the free flow of information at a time of crisis when the public most needs to stay informed," NetBlocks director Alp Toker told the BBC.

Before he was apprehended by Amsterdam police, the suspect involved in Tuesday’s Apple Store hostage situation demanded a €200 million (approximately $226 million) ransom paid in cryptocurrencies, Reuters reported on Wednesday. Police say they have yet to establish a motive for the 27-year-old gunman, whose identity they didn’t share. What we know is that he was a resident of the city and had a criminal record before the event. He was also carrying explosives on his person at the time of his arrest. 

The gunman was apprehended after his hostage fled the building when a police robot delivered water to the front of the store. Police used a squad car to knock him down, causing him serious injuries. On Wednesday, he died of the injuries he sustained in his arrest. "The hostage played a heroic role by forcing a breakthrough," according to Amsterdam police chief Frank Pauw. "He acted in a split-second. Had he not done that, we could have been in for a long, nasty night."

According to Engadget’s research, Wednesday’s incident wasn’t the first time someone demanded a ransom paid in cryptocurrency to end a hostage situation. In 2017, kidnappers in Ukraine released an employee from a cryptocurrency exchange after their demand for a ransom paid in Bitcoin (valued at $1 million at the time) was met.

One of the more popular VR apps you can download through Steam and Meta’s Oculus Quest Store has a child safety problem. If you’re unfamiliar with VRChat, the app styles as “the future” of social virtual reality. “Our vision for VRChat is to enable anybody to create and share their own social virtual worlds,” the game’s developer says on its Steam store page. With some understanding of Unity, players can create their own social spaces and avatars. That means you can see a lot of creativity on display in VRChat, but there’s also a dark side to it as the BBC found out.

Posing as a 13-year-old girl, BBC researcher Jess Sherwood said she entered a virtual strip club where she saw adult men chase a child while telling them to remove their clothes. In many of the rooms Sherwood visited, she frequently saw condoms and sex toys on display, and on one occasion even saw a group of adult men and minors simulating group sex. She also saw instances of grooming. 

"It's very uncomfortable, and your options are to stay and watch, move on to another room where you might see something similar, or join in — which, on many occasions, I was instructed to do," she said.

"Predatory and toxic behavior has no place on the platform,” VRChat told the BBC. The developer added it was “working hard to make itself a safe and welcoming place for everyone.” We’ve reached out to the company for additional comment. Part of the problem stems from the fact nearly anyone can download and play VRChat. For instance, to download the app from the Oculus Quest Store, all you need is a Facebook account. Sherwood created a fake profile to set up her account and access VRChat.  

She isn’t the first person to notice VRChat has a child safety problem. While the game has a “Very Positive” rating on Steam, the presence of predatory adults is something you see referenced frequently in both positive and negative reviews. “Enjoyable social VR slowly being ruined by horny degenerates and ddosers,” said one player with more than 2,300 hours spent in the game.

“The amount of ‘people’ around the age of 30 attempting to do stuff like flirting all the way to trying to have e-sex with clearly underage users is alarming,” said another player.

VRChat isn’t the only metaverse app dealing with what amounts to a harassment problem. At the start of February, Meta added a Personal Boundary feature to Horizon Worlds to give users the ability to prevent people from entering their personal space. More recently, Microsoft took the dramatic step of removing Altspace VR’s social hubs. 

The union that wants to represent workers at Amazon’s BHM1 facility in Bessemer, Alabama is accusing the company of once again violating the National Labor Relations Act. In an email the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) sent Tuesday, it said it would file Unfair Labor Practice charges against the retailer.

Specifically, the organization alleges Amazon broke the law by removing pro-union posters put up by members of BAmazon, and implementing a new rule that limits the amount of time workers can spend inside the facility to 30 minutes before and after their shift. Additionally, the RWDSU alleges Amazon forced workers to attend anti-union meetings. If the NLRB finds Amazon’s actions violated the law, the union could then challenge the result of the ongoing second election at BHM1. That vote is currently scheduled to conclude on March 28th.

“While we haven’t seen today’s filing yet, we’re confident that our teams have fully complied with the law. Our focus remains on working directly with our team to make Amazon a great place to work," Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel told Engadget.

Last April, BHM1 became the first large Amazon facility in the US to hold a union vote. While workers there voted decisively against forming a union, the RWDSU went on to successfully challenge the vote. The NLRB ruled the company had illegally interfered with the vote and called for a rerun of the election to be held. Whether Amazon wins or loses the second election at Bessemer, it could be months before the NLRB makes a decision on the latest allegations from the RWDSU. That could set the stage for a protracted labor battle at the facility. 

Last spring, Mediatonic added partial support for cross-platform play to Fall Guys. At the time, PlayStation and PC players could create custom lobbies to play against one another, and you would see people on other systems when matchmaking. But amidst all that, you could not form cross-platform parties. That’s changing with the game’s latest mid-season update.

Fall Guys now includes full cross-play support. Provided you and your friends have signed up for Epic Accounts and linked them to Fall Guys, you can start inviting one another to form parties. What’s more, you can take part in all available playlists, including Squads, Duos and Main Show, while in a cross-platform group.

As part of today’s update, Mediatonic also detailed Sweet Thieves, a new game mode coming to Fall Guys “in the very near future.” The mode will see your bean cast as either a Thief or Guardian. As the former, you’ll need to steal as many candy pieces as possible, while the latter will see you trying to locate and jail the Thieves. Mediatonic promised to share a trailer detailing the mode “very soon.”

Five weeks after a volcanic eruption and subsequent tsunami knocked out internet access on the archipelago, Tonga is once again connected to the web. On Tuesday, Digicel, one of the country’s two main ISPs, said it had restored data connectivity on Tongatapu and Eua islands after the submarine Reliance completed repairs on the 514-mile fiber optic cable connecting the South Pacific nation to Fiji and the rest of the world. It took the underwater craft 20 days to replace a 57-mile section of the cable that had suffered multiple breaks.

However, not all of Tonga has internet access yet. The domestic cable that connects the main island of Tongatapu to its outlying neighbors suffered damage during the tsunami as well. Tonga Cable CEO James Panuve told Reuters it could take six to nine months to complete the necessary repairs, with a cable shortage delaying the work. “We don’t have enough cable,” he said.

The outage underscored just how precarious internet access can be for island nations and other remote communities. The fact it only took five weeks for Tonga to get back online is thanks to telecommunication companies from neighboring islands that shared cabling with the country when it ran out of its own supply.

While we humans can't agree where we stand on tracking devices, one group of birds assertively came out against the technology. In The Conversation, Dominique Potvin, an Animal Ecology professor at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, said he and his team recently witnessed a mischief of magpies display a rare cooperative “rescue” behavior when they attempted to track the birds.

As part of their study, Potvin’s team developed a seemingly ingenious way of collecting data on a group of five magpies. They developed a lightweight but tough harness the birds could wear like backpacks and carry a small tracker with them as they went about their daily lives. They also created a feeding station that would wirelessly charge and download data from the trackers. It even had a magnet for freeing the birds of the harness. “We were excited by the design, as it opened up many possibilities for efficiency and enabled a lot of data to be collected,” Potvin said.

Unfortunately, the study fell apart in mere days. Within 10 minutes of Potvin’s team fitting the final tracker, they saw a female magpie use her bill to remove a harness off of one of the younger birds. Hours later, most of the other test subjects had been freed of their trackers too. By day three, even the most dominant male in the group had allowed one of his flock to assist him.

“We don’t know if it was the same individual helping each other or if they shared duties, but we had never read about any other bird cooperating in this way to remove tracking devices,” Potvin said. “The birds needed to problem solve, possibly testing at pulling and snipping at different sections of the harness with their bill. They also needed to willingly help other individuals, and accept help.”

According to Potvin, the only other example they could find of that kind of behavior among birds involved Seychelles warblers who helped their flockmates escape from sticky Pisonia seed clusters. Visit The Conversation to read the full story.