Biden’s Afghan Gamble | Stopping Human Smuggling Groups | Post-Bin Laden al Qaeda, and more

al-Zawahiri, an ideologue who has cut a far less charismatic presence. Zawahiri has had to lie very low, most likely around the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, amid speculation over whether he is still even alive, while the group has now mutated into something very different. “AQ central is a shadow of its former self,” Barak Mendelsohn, a terrorism expert at Haverford College in Pennsylvania, told AFP. “Zawahiri’s biggest success was to keep Al-Qaeda alive.” Mendelsohn said that rather than being a coherent decision-making centre, Al-Qaeda’s leadership is now more akin to a “board of advisors” rallying and assisting jihadists across the world. Zawahiri, 69, has seen Al-Qaeda essentially franchise out its operations from the Maghreb to Somalia to Afghanistan, as well as in Syria and Iraq.

Facebook, YouTube Execs Defend Algorithms, Downplay ‘Extremist’ Content, ‘Shadow Banning’  (Benjamin Fearnow. Newsweek)
Some of Silicon Valley top algorithm experts testified Tuesday in front of bipartisan members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, tasked with defending Big Tech from accusations it capitalizes on “short-term rage” and their role in society’s increasing polarization. Democratic Delaware Senator Chris Coons, chairman of the committee, opened Tuesday’s “Algorithms and Amplification” hearing by asking “what happens when algorithms become so good at showing you content” that users spend hours tuned into frequently hateful or outright false messaging. Executives from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube consistently defended the use of algorithms and other social media platform technology as tools of “open public conversation.” But GOP Senator Ben Sasse joined committee members in questioning the Silicon Valley companies on whether they’re capitalizing off “misinformation” and users’ “narcissistic” impulses. “People are pretty good at short-term rage, and the product capitalizes on that, doesn’t it?” Sasse asked Twitter’s head of U.S. public policy, Lauren Culbertson.

Intelligence Community Creating Hub to Gird against Foreign Influence  (Martin Matishak, Politico)
America’s top spy agency has begun work to establish a hub to combat hostile foreign meddling in U.S. affairs, following multiple assessments that Russia and other countries have sought to sway elections and sow chaos among the American people. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence will create the Foreign Malign Influence Center “in light of evolving threats and in support of growing policy and congressional requirements,” an agency spokesperson said Monday in a statement to POLITICO.

Japan tightens rules on tech theft to safeguard research with US  (Akira Oikawa, Nikkei Asia)
Seeking to promote joint research with the U.S. in quantum technology, artificial intelligence and other top fields, Japan will impose tougher disclosure rules on universities to keep information that could be used for military purposes out of foreign hands.

Chinese-Founded Social Network Yalla Is Rising Star in Middle East(Financial Times)
TikTok is the most famous example of a Chinese social media app that became a smash hit overseas, but in the Middle East there is a second Chinese-founded app that is taking the region by storm. Yalla, or “Let’s go” in Arabic, saw the monthly users of its chat app and its games app increase by nearly fivefold to more than 12m in the year to last June, and its share price has more than tripled since an IPO in New York last October.

DHS Launching New Operation to Stop Human Smuggling Groups at Southern Border  (Julia Ainsley, NBC News)
Troy Miller, acting commissioner of CBP, said his agency has rescued 4,766 migrants along the border since October who were abandoned by smugglers.