From the suspension of DeepSeek downloads in South Korea to amended PECA petition in Pakistan, here’s everything we covered at Digital Rights Monitor (DRM) this week.
Read our weekly news roundup.
SOUTH KOREA: DeepSeek downloads suspended
DeepSeek downloads have been suspended on app stores in South Korea amid a privacy review, the country’s data protection authority has announced.
According to Seoul’s Personal Information Protection Commission, DeepSeek’s R1 artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot will not be available for downloads across app stores until its data collection practices have been reviewed.
DeepSeek itself has admitted to not complying with certain local data protection rules laid out by the PIPC. The popular chatbot will return to app stores once corrective measures have been taken which, the PIPC says, “would inevitably take a significant amount of time”.
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PAKISTAN: Cybercrime law changes challenged in high court
A petition against the recent changes to the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA) has been filed in the Islamabad High Court (IHC). It was taken up for hearing on Monday by Acting Chief Justice Mohammad Sarfraz Dogar.
This is the second petition filed by a major body in the IHC against the Prevention of Electronic Crimes (Amendment) Act, 2025, with the first lodged on February 7, 2025, by the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists (PFUJ).
The IHC Journalists Association (IHCJA) has filed the latest petition, terming the revised PECA a “severe attack” on press freedom and arguing that it stands in violation of fundamental constitutional rights.
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Instagram testing feature for ‘more friendly’ comments
Instagram is currently experimenting with a “dislike button”, which will help users privately indicate their discomfort with certain comments, according to a post by the platform’s head, Adam Mosseri.
The announcement, which was made last week on Threads (Meta’s rival app to X), clarified that the feature will not entail a count for dislikes. The feature may be available on both posts and reels, and will not disclose the identity of the user who dislikes a certain comment.
“Some of you may have seen that we’re testing a new button next to comments on Instagram – this gives people a private way to signal that they don’t feel good about that particular comment,” Mosseri said, adding that the feature will allow users to express they don’t feel good about a particular comment.
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EU: WhatsApp to face stricter regulations
WhatsApp is set to face stricter regulations in the European Union (EU) after reaching the status of “Very Large Online Platform” or “VLOP”.
The status, laid out under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), is given to tech platforms that have about 45 million monthly users. In its latest transparency report, WhatsApp discloses that it has reached 46.8 average monthly users.
“We have estimated the average monthly active recipients of WhatsApp Channels in the EU by reference to the average monthly active users on that service,” says WhatsApp. “For WhatsApp Channels, we define a monthly active user as an active user of the WhatsApp mobile app who opened a Channel in the last 30 days as of the date of measurement.”
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