The Week That Was: the 6 things you need to know
Malicious foreign actors find it easy to interfere and manipulate information in the European Union because of lack of awareness and counter measures, concluded an inquiry made by the European Parliament. Separately, the Parliament has set up three new committees to look into the use of spyware by EU governments, malicious foreign interference, and lessons from the pandemic.
The European Commission is investigating if an agreement between Google and Meta for online display advertising services may have breached EU competition rules. Both companies protested and made statements saying their agreement increases competition.
Meta is making an exception from its rules about hate speech and allow users in some countries to call for violence against Vladimir Putin and Russian soldiers. “In light of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, we made a temporary exception for those affected by the war, to express violent sentiments toward invading armed forces”, a Meta spokesperson told the BBC.
BBC News journalists in Russia resumed broadcasting from the country. The management had stopped their reporting a few days earlier when Russia introduced a law with up to 15 years in jail for what the authorities could define as spreading fake news about the Russian army. A large number of other Western news media also decided to temporarily suspend reporting from Russia with reference to the new legislation.
UK’s Online Safety Bill will try to make social media sites and search engines stop paid-for scam adverts appearing. It intends to block scam ads that appear like articles or news about celebrities and mislead users to websites were their personal data gets stolen and their bank accounts emptied, or they are lured to place their savings to non existing investments.
Google is buying cyber defence company Mandiant for €5 billion. Upon the close of the acquisition, Mandiant will join Google Cloud. Cyber security challenges have accelerated in frequency, severity and diversity.
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