Stories from Abroad

Throughout my time here in New Delhi, I look forward to strengthening friendships—and building new ones—with colleagues across both government and industry. Together, we can help deliver digital opportunity for all those we represent.

Britain's Information Commissioner has slapped Facebook with a fine of $644,000 — the maximum possible — for its behavior in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The ICO's investigation found that between 2007 and 2014, Facebook processed the personal information of users unfairly by giving app developers access to their information without informed consent. The fine was the maximum allowed under the law at the time the breach occurred.

Four years ago, the United Nations predicted that more than half of the global population would be connected to the internet by 2017, buoyed in part by “the fastest growing technology in human history”: mobile broadband. The world missed the mark.

Operatives behind Russian-linked bots used tools from US startups, including IFTTT Inc., to supercharge social-media misinformation campaigns and meddle in elections. Data disclosed by Twitter showed that hundreds of accounts affiliated with the Russia-based Internet Research Agency used services offered by IFTTT, RoundTeam Inc. and Dlvr.it Inc. to automate and disperse their divisive messages more widely. San Francisco-based IFTTT lets people connect different apps and automatically post content on multiple services.

The murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a columnist for The Washington Post, has focused the world’s attention on the kingdom’s intimidation campaign against influential voices raising questions about the darker side of the crown prince. The young royal has tightened his grip on the kingdom while presenting himself in Western capitals as the man to reform the hidebound Saudi state. Saudi operatives have mobilized to harass critics on Twitter, a wildly popular platform for news in the kingdom since the Arab Spring uprisings began in 2010.

The Web Foundation is working on an analysis of United Nations data that shows the growth of internet access around the world has slowed dramatically. The striking trend shows the rate at which the world is getting online has fallen sharply since 2015, with women and the rural poor substantially excluded from education, business, and other opportunities the internet can provide. The data shows that growth in global internet access dropped from 19% in 2007 to less than 6% in 2017.

Twitter accounts originating in Iran masqueraded as foreign journalists and concerned US citizens in their attempt to push political messages on the social media site until they were suspended earlier in 2018.

The received wisdom was once that a unified, unbounded web promoted democracy through the free flow of information. Things don’t seem quite so simple anymore. All signs point to a future with three internets: one internet led by China, one internet led by the United States, and one internet led by the European Union. All three regions are generating sets of rules, regulations and norms that are beginning to rub up against one another.

Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced dramatic gains in internet use in recent years. With this rapid growth in connectivity have come a host of potential problems, including fake news, political targeting and manipulation and financial scams, among others. Yet according to a new Pew Research Center analysis, most sub-Saharan Africans feel positively about the role the internet plays in their country.

A major US telecommunications company discovered manipulated hardware from Super Micro Computer Inc. in its network and removed it in Aug, fresh evidence of tampering in China of critical technology components bound for the US, according to Yossi Appleboum, a security expert working for the telecom company.