The week that was in IT and Media: top news week 11
Media
Support to Ukraine: Money is pouring in for the Ukrainian journalists covering the invasion of their country. A fundraising campaign organized by journalism groups The Fix, Are We Europe, Jnomics and Media Development Foundation has raised more than USD 4 million in a little over two weeks, Nieman Lab reports. At the same time, Russian journalist Marina Ovsyannikova interrupted Russian Channel One‘s live news broadcast by holding up a sign protesting against the war in Ukraine. According to the Russian state-owned news agency TASS, the woman was arrested, but later released after having been fined Rouble 30 000 (around Euro 2 500). She told the BBC she had been questioned for 14 hours and not been given any legal help.
After six years in Iran, most of the time in jail, Thomson Reuters Foundation’s Nazanin Zaghari -Ratcliffe has been released and allowed to return to her family in London. She was released together with Anousheh Ashouri who also has British Iranian double citizenship.
IT
Data Leaks: Meta has been fined Euro 17 million by the Irish Data Protection Commission for a series of data leaks. The authority says Meta failed to have in place security measures that protected users’ personal data. The decision followed an inquiry by the DPC into a series of twelve data breach notifications it received between 7 June 2018 and 4 December 2018.
Fraudulent Ads: Meta is not doing enough to stop scam ads about cryptocurrencies on its Facebook, according to Australian Competition and Consumer Commission that is taking legal action against the company. The Commission says that Meta knowingly is hosting scam ads for cryptocurrencies. The ads, using well-known people’s names without their permission, have ruined peoples’ private economy in many countries. It is also alleged that Meta aided and abetted or was knowingly concerned in false or misleading conduct and representations by the advertisers.
This week has been rich with EU initiatives towards gender equality and women’s rights:
Violence against women: To combat violence against women and domestic violence, the Commission has proposed EU-wide rules in a directive that will criminalize rape based on lack of consent, female genital mutilation and cyber violence. The cyber violence addressed includes non-consensual sharing of intimate images, cyber stalking; cyber harassment; and cyber incitement to violence or hatred.The proposal complements the Digital Services Act (DSA) by defining illegal online content related to cyber violence.
Women on boards: EU’s employment and social affairs ministers have agreed on a “general approach” on proposed EU legislation aiming to improve gender balance among non-executive directors of listed companies. Companies would have to by 2027 reach the minimum target of having 40% of non-executive director positions held by members of the under-represented sex, or 33% if all, and not only non-executive, board members are included.
Equal Pay: The European Parliament’s committees for women’s rights and employment has sharpened proposals in a Pay Transparency Directive to get better tools working for equal pay. The committees want companies with at least 50 employees to be fully transparent regarding salaries while the original proposal was to set the original proposal set the border at 250 employees. Working women in the European Union earn on average 14% less than men.
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