Human Rights/Civil Liberties

A Microsoft Corp. MSFT -0.37% search engine has made it harder in North America to look up people who are politically sensitive for China, according to a cybersecurity and surveillance group report.Bing’s autofill system, which offers guesses on what users are searching for after a few keystrokes, often fell silent in connection to names the Chinese government deems sensitive, Citizen Lab said in the report Thursday. Last year Microsoft suspended the autofill feature in…

Google has moved the bulk of its employees out of Russia, according to people familiar with the matter, ending the company’s commercial presence in the country for the near future. Most of Google’s Russian employees opted to leave the country and continue to work for Google outside Russia, with a large number ending up in Dubai, where Google has a big office, the people said. Some employees opted to stay in Russia and leave the company, and soon Google will have no more employees in…

Countries are taking more steps to compel social-media platforms to shield users from material they deem harmful through standards that could affect Twitter Inc. TWTR -0.31% as Elon Musk prepares to buy the company.Regulators from Australia to the European Union, India, Canada and the U.K. have recently introduced or are considering new rules for policing online content. They include a coming EU requirement for major platforms to conduct…

A federal judge has tossed a lawsuit filed last year by former President Donald Trump against Twitter Inc. TWTR -1.11% and its then-chief executive Jack Dorsey over alleged censorship, an issue that the company’s potential new owner, Elon Musk, has said he would clamp down on. U.S. District Judge James Donato of…