From internet suspension during the student protests in Bangladesh to takedowns of sextortion accounts on Instagram in Nigeria, here’s everything we covered at Digital Rights Monitor (DRM) this week.
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BANGLADESH: Internet, mobile services suspended amid student protests
Internet and mobile phone services were suspended in Bangladesh as the protests over the allocation of government jobs turned violent on Thursday last week, according to various media reports.
At the centre of escalated demonstrations were students, supporters of the government (primarily students), and armed forces. The protests, which started countrywide weeks previously, took a violent turn, with at least 32 reportedly killed to date.
Last Friday, the authorities completely suspended the internet and mobile phone services across the country. The broadcast of TV news channels went off air, too.
Cellular and broadband internet access was reportedly down in Dhaka — Bangladesh’s capital — and leading social media platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp were facing complete disruption.
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NIGERIA: Meta fined $220m for violating privacy laws
Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, was fined $220 million in Nigeria after investigations by the country’s tech watchdog concluded the company violated local laws on data protection and consumer privacy, according to an official statement.
Nigeria’s Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) stated that Meta engaged in “abusive” and “invasive” practices against Nigerian users. These practices included appropriating personal data without informed consent, discriminatory management, and disparate treatment of consumers compared to other regions with similar regulatory frameworks.
The watchdog accused Meta of abusing its market dominance by “forcing unscrupulous, exploitative, and non-compliant privacy policies” and harvesting users’ personal information without giving them the options to determine or consent to the gathering of their information.
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Google reverses plan to block tracking cookies on Chrome
Google announced that it will keep third-party cookies in its Chrome browser, backtracking on its years-long promise to scrap the tiny files of data that have been found to track users on the internet in multiple investigations.
The decision to keep the cookies was announced following concerns from Google’s advertisers, which constitute a large chunk of its billion-dollar business. The advertisers complained they wouldn’t be able to collect user information for personalised or behavourial advertising if cookies were scrapped.
“Instead of deprecating third-party cookies, we would introduce a new experience in Chrome that lets people make an informed choice that applies across their web browsing, and they’d be able to adjust that choice at any time,” read a blog post by Anthony Chavez, who is the vice president of Sandbox, Google’s privacy initiative.
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NIGERIA: Instagram removes 63,000 sextortion accounts, says Meta
Meta Platforms announced that it removed about 63,000 accounts engaged in sextortion scams in Nigeria. The removed profiles included a coordinated network of 2,500 accounts, according to an official blog post.
The removal targeted the “Yahoo Boys”, a group of cybercriminals that has been banned under Meta’s Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy. The group specialises in various forms of online crimes, according to Meta. The company also removed several accounts, pages, and groups operated by the group on Facebook.
“First, we removed around 63,000 Instagram accounts in Nigeria that attempted to directly engage in financial sextortion scams,” said Meta. “These included a smaller coordinated network of around 2,500 accounts that we were able to link to a group of around 20 individuals.”
Meta’s investigation revealed that most of the sextortion attempts aimed at adult users were unsuccessful. However, several accounts belonging to minors were targeted, too. Meta reported the accounts to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
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