A comparison of an original and deepfake video of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Elyse Samuels | The Washington Post | Getty Images

LISBON, Portugal Facebook is wrong to shut down its facial recognition system, according to Garry Kasparov, the former world chess champion and chairman of the Human Rights Foundation.

The decision, announced Tuesday, is "stupid" Kasparov told CNBC at the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon.

"It's bowing to this public outrage," Kasparov said Wednesday, just days after Facebook rebranded itself to Meta. "Personally, I think it's stupid for a simple reason: Facebook can shut it down, the Chinese will not."

Facebook did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

Born into what was then the Soviet Union, Kasparov became the youngest ever undisputed World Chess Champion in 1985 at age 22. In 1997 he became the first world champion to lose a match to a computer: IBM's Deep Blue.

Today, he says he is pro-technology and against overregulation.

"Any technological feature that's available, for me, it doesn't make any sense to block it," Kasparov said. Privacy campaigners would strongly disagree.

He added: "It's insane to think that in the era of global internet, you can actually start forcing companies in America or in Europe to follow these rules and to abandon new features."

Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov speaks during 2018's Web Summit in Lisbon, Portugal.

Pedro Fiuza | NurPhoto | Getty Images

The decision to shut down the facial recognition system on Facebook comes amid a barrage of news reports over the past month after Frances Haugen, a former employee turned whistleblower, released a trove of internal company documents to news outlets, lawmakers and regulators.

Facebook said in a blogpost that there are "many concerns" about the use of facial recognition technology in society, noting how regulators are still in the process of providing a clear set of rules governing its use.

"Amid this ongoing uncertainty, we believe that limiting the use of facial recognition to a narrow set of use cases is appropriate," the social media giant said.

Ending the use of the face recognition system is part of "a company-wide move away from this kind of broad identification," Facebook said.

In 2012, Facebook acquired Israeli start-up Face.com for reportedly under $100 million, snapping up a team of developers who focused on facial recognition for mobile apps. The deal came just months after Facebook acquired Instagram, CEO Mark Zuckerberg's biggest effort at the time to move the business to mobile.

In July 2020, the company agreed to pay a $650 million settlement after it was sued for collecting and storing biometric data without first getting user consent, which is prohibited by the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act.

- Additional reporting by CNBC's Salvador Rodriguez.

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Facebook should not have bowed to public outrage and shut down its facial recognition system, former world chess champion says - CNBC

Migrants wait outside of Narewka, Poland, on Tuesday, where the government said that between 3,000 and 4,000 people were in a makeshift camp with thousands more believed to be en route.Kacper Pempel/Reuters

Several thousand asylum-seekers from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan were camped along the border between Poland and Belarus for a second night on Tuesday, their desperation being used as leverage in an increasingly dangerous geopolitical struggle.

Behind the would-be refugees stood a line of Belarusian soldiers and riot police, the iron fist of Alexander Lukashenkos regime, which opened a road for migrants to reach Belarus. The regime then sent them straight on to the countrys borders with Poland, as well as the Baltic states of Lithuania and Latvia.

The Polish government said that between 3,000 and 4,000 people were in the makeshift camp near the Kuznica border crossing on Tuesday night, as temperatures plunged near 0 C, and thousands more refugees and migrants were believed to be en route.

In front of them, on the other side of thick coils of barbed wire that mark the frontier of not just Poland, but also the European Union and NATO, were some 12,000 Polish soldiers and riot police, brought to the border region after the Polish government declared a state of emergency in the area. On Tuesday, Lithuania, which is also a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, declared a state of emergency along its own border with Belarus after seeing a surge in attempted illegal crossings.

A member of Polish security forces sprays liquid through the border fence.Leonid Scheglov/BelTA/Handout via REUTERs

Polish forces could be seen in videos using what appeared to be pepper spray to drive back crowds who had broken through the barbed wire in some places using shovels, logs and other tools. Polish troops have also faced accusations of violating international law by pushing asylum-seekers who managed to cross the border back into Belarus.

Belarusian soldiers, meanwhile, have occasionally fired volleys into the air in an apparent effort to drive the refugees forward. The Belarusian regime is attacking the Polish border, the EU, in an unparalleled manner, Polish President Andrzej Duda told a news conference in Warsaw. These are aggressive actions that we must repel, fulfilling our obligations as a member of the European Union.

Polands Border Guard reported 309 illegal attempts to breach the frontier on Monday and said 17 people, most of them Iraqis, had been detained.

Western governments have accused Mr. Lukashenkos authoritarian regime of using the asylum-seekers to seek revenge on Poland and Lithuania for their overt support of a popular uprising in Belarus last year that nearly toppled the long-ruling dictator. His apparent aim is to create a new refugee crisis inside the European Union, a smaller-scale version of what happened in 2015 and 2016, when hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants arrived in the EU, creating deep political divisions in some countries, and empowering far-right political movements.

That 2015-16 crisis eased only after the EU agreed to pay 3-billion ($4.2-billion) to Turkey, which in turn agreed to keep asylum-seekers in camps on its soil, rather than allowing them easy passage to Europe.

Prospects of the EU reaching a similar deal with Mr. Lukashenkos regime seem remote. Instead, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called on Monday for sanctions against Belarus to be extended, and for additional sanctions to be used to punish those involved in what she called the cynical instrumentalization of migrants.

Migrants are seen through the windows of vehicles in a forest outside Narewka, Poland, on Nov. 9 as border guards took them to a detention centre.Kacper Pempel/Reuters

For months, Belarusian embassies in places such as Damascus, Baghdad and Beirut have been rubber-stamping visas for those hoping to reach Europe.

Some travel packages which reportedly cost between $17,000 and $21,000 a person include flights to the Belarusian capital of Minsk, where migrants are allowed to stay for several days before they are guided toward one of the borders.

State media in Belarus sought to portray Poland and the EU as inhumane for leaving the asylum-seekers stranded at the border in the cold, with insufficient clothing or food. Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russias Foreign Ministry, said Western countries had a responsibility to care for the migrants since it was the West that had waged wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Exacerbating tensions, Poland is a member of NATO while Belarus is a staunch Russian ally. Mr. Lukashenko held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to discuss the crisis.

In an interview with Russias National Defense magazine, excerpts from which were published on Tuesday, Mr. Lukashenko accused Poland of provoking the situation by moving military equipment closer to the border. He referenced the dark history of large wars beginning in the region.

You have to agree that resorting to weapons in the modern world is tantamount to suicide. Even more so here, in the centre of Europe. And even more so with Belarus. Because all the wars have always happened in this piece of land in the centre, everything began here. Doesnt history teach anything? Mr. Lukashenko was quoted as saying.

Belarus's President Alexander Lukashenko.Sergei Shelega/BelTA Pool Photo via AP

Poland and the EU, meanwhile, say Belarus and Russia are waging a hybrid war against them, with the border crisis coming at the same time as Mr. Lukashenkos allies in Moscow are tightening the economic squeeze on Europe, driving up energy prices by reducing exports of Russian natural gas.

This attack which Lukashenko is conducting has its mastermind in Moscow, the mastermind is President Putin, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki told an emergency session of the Polish Parliament on Tuesday.

However, Valery Kavaleuski, foreign affairs representative for the Belarusian democratic movement, said it was Mr. Lukashenko, not the Kremlin, that was driving the crisis.

Mr. Kavaleuski said Western economic sanctions imposed after a 2020 Belarusian election that many believe was won by challenger Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya were starting to pinch Mr. Lukashenko and his inner circle, so the dictator decided to escalate.

Canada and other Western governments have never recognized the 2020 election result as legitimate, and they applied sanctions against Mr. Lukashenko and his coterie after force was used to suppress the pro-democracy protests that erupted after the disputed vote.

Lukashenko wants to use [the refugee crisis] to put pressure on the EU. Hes saying, Recognize me [as President] and lift the sanctions and the situation will be resolved, Mr. Kavaleuski said. He predicted that the crisis would get more dangerous in the days ahead. Events have shown that hes willing to take more risks and double down.

Police police and border guards keep watch at the fence near Grodno.Leonid Shcheglov/BelTA via AP/The Associated Press

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Poland-Belarus border: Asylum-seekers trapped in Eastern Europe by Lukashenko's political chess game - The Globe and Mail

Algorand, theofficial blockchain partner ofthe2021 World Chess Championship, is holding aseries ofonline chess tournaments tocelebrate theupcoming Championship Match between Magnus Carlsen andIan Nepomniachtchi.

World Chess is streaming theFinal on Youtube on October 24th at14:50 UTC, with commentator GM Evgeny Miroshnichenko, andthespecial guest WGM Dina Belenkaya.

Subscribe toour channel andbecome apart ofthis festivity!

Lets go throw therules andprizes:

Toqualify fortheFinal, which will be held on October the24th, aplayer has tofinish inthetop five (i.e 1-5 inclusive) inone ofthe4 qualifying tournaments.

Theprize winner andaguest will receive a4-day trip toDubai andtickets forthefirst round oftheChampionship match.

Thesecond-place winner will receive thefamous Academy chess set, thefirst-ever set that is produced inplastic inexactly thesame design asthefamous official World Chess Championship set that is used intheWorld Chess Championship!

Thethird-place winner will get aone-year subscription totheFIDE Online Arena, theofficial chess gaming platform, toplay fortheofficial online ratings andtitles recognized byFiDE.

TheSeries launched on September the26th andcompleted thelast qualifying tournament on October the20th. More than 4,000 players from all around theworld participated andthe20 who reached thetop five ofeach tournament will face each other attheFinal!

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The Algorand Series: the Final - World Chess

The opening ceremony of the 2021 US Chess Championships will be held the evening of Tuesday, October 5, though chess fans nationwide are invited to join the private event online. While 24 of Americas strongest players reunite in the St. Louis MUNY, an outdoor Municipal Opera Theatre in the city's Forest Park, the championship host Saint Louis Chess Club will stream the ceremony live beginning at 7:15 p.m. central.

Name

2021 U.S. Chess Championships: Opening Ceremony & HOF Inductions

Tuesdays opening event will feature the drawing of lots for both the 2021 U.S. Championship and the U.S. Womens Championship, as well as the inductions of Rex Sinquefield and Dr. Jeanne Cairns Sinquefield into the U.S. Chess Hall of Fame. The philanthropist couple, who among many other things that credit a rapid resurgence of American chess over the past decade, built the Saint Louis Chess Club as host of the national championships for 13 consecutive years, as well as relocate the World Chess Hall of Fame to help convert St. Louis into the nation's chess capital.

Previously finding a home in New York, Washington D.C. and then Miami, the World Chess Hall of Fame is now parked in a three-floor, 15,000-square-foot gallery museum across the street from the club, and contains both the U.S. and the World Chess Halls of Fame. Both Halls are active this October; the U.S. will catch pace tonight with the Sinquefields -- 2020 nominees who missed induction due to the pandemic while the World Chess Hall of Fame has its inductions planned during the national championship closing ceremonies on October 19. The 2021 World inductees will be Grandmaster legends Judit Polgar, Miguel Najdorf and Eugene Torre.

Each and every induction into the Chess Halls of Fame has always deeply moved me, but seeing Jeanne and Rex, the founders of the Saint Louis Chess Campus now join the ranks of other chess legends is certainly an honor, said Shannon Bailey, chief curator of the WCHOF. They are truly deserving of the recognition and are responsible for rejuvenating both national and global interest in chess.

The opening ceremony of the 2021 U.S. Championships will stream live Tuesday evening, beginning at 7:15 p.m. St. Louis time. The event may be viewed on the Saint Louis Chess Club YouTube channelor the official website of the U.S. Championships, http://www.uschesschamps.com.

Both national championships will see their first moves pushed on Wednesday, October 6 at 1:00 p.m. central and may be viewed live on the same channels, along with the GM commentary team of Maurice Ashley, Alejandro Ramirez and four-time US Chess Champion GM Yasser Seirawan.

Check back with CLO for daily coverage of the 2021 US Chess Championships through October 19.

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2021 US Chess Championships Opening Ceremony Streamed Live - uschess.org