Data and security

Rohingya refugees are taking Meta to Ireland’s High Court for the tech giant’s alleged role in the 2017 Myanmar genocide, one of the worst war crimes of this century.

Friday (25 August) marked six years since the start of the ethnic cleansing, which saw more than 25,000 people of Muslim Rohingya descent killed by Myanmar’s military, with a further 700,000 displaced. Most fled to nearby Bangladesh, where many still live, often in refugee camps like Kutupalong, the world’s largest.  

In 2018, UN human rights investigators said the use of Meta’s social media platform Facebook had played a key role in spreading hate speech that fuelled the violence.  

“Facebook’s algorithms and Meta’s ruthless pursuit of profit created an echo chamber that helped foment hatred of the Rohingya people and contributed to the conditions which forced the ethnic group to flee Myanmar en masse,” read a statement by Amnesty International. 

In 2018, Facebook admitted it had been “too slow” in addressing hate speech in Myanmar and was acting to remedy the problem by hiring more Burmese speakers and investing in technology to identify problematic content. To date, the company has not paid any compensation.

“I blame Facebook, its parent company Meta, and the man behind it all, Mark Zuckerberg, for helping create the conditions that allowed the Myanmar military to unleash hell upon us,” wrote Maung Sawyeddollah, a Rohingya refugee who lives at the Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh, in an op-ed for Al Jazeera last week. “The social media company allowed anti-Rohingya sentiments to fester on its pages. Its algorithms promoted disinformation that eventually translated into real-life violence.”   

The cases, filed last week, were brought by two Dublin-based law firms that represent 17 Rohingya refugees. Ireland, the cases will likely argue, is the most appropriate country to bring the litigation since Meta is headquartered there and the content moderation was done in Dublin.   

This is not the first time that the Rohingya have instigated legal proceedings against Meta. In 2021, a $150bn lawsuit was filed in California but later dismissed for a number of reasons, including a provision in the US’ Communications Decency Act that gives immunity to platforms like Facebook which publish third-party content. It remains to be seen whether the Irish courts will come to a similar judgement.

Either way, the case raises a number of serious concerns about the spread of disinformation on social media platforms. 

Ironically, the sixth anniversary of the Rohingya genocide fell on the same day that the EU’s Digital Services Act came into effect. The law is designed to empower and protect users online against harmful or illegal content, disinformation, and the violation of privacy and free speech.

Let’s hope Big Tech falls in line with these new regulations and the EU enforce them properly, so that we have a better chance of prevent tragedies like the Myanmar genocide.

As fears of war with China escalate, Taiwan is seeking European support for its communications systems.

The island nation recently tapped services from two satellite firms on the continent: the UK’s OneWeb and Luxembourg’s SES.

To avoid disruption during a potential conflict, SES will implement a medium-earth orbit (MEO) satellite network, Taipei’s digital ministry announced last week.

SES confirmed the project to TNW on Monday. The company said it aimed to give Taiwan “an emergency backup network in case of damages to its current terrestrial networks.”

The move is part of broader plans to strengthen Taiwan’s digital resilience. The country hopes non-geostationary satellites can protect services such as online calls, video conferencing, and live broadcasting.

In addition to the SES deployment, Taiwan has sought assistance from OneWeb. Audrey Tang, the country’s digital minister, visited the British company in June to discuss deploying a low-Earth orbit (LEO) system. Tang said OneWeb — which is backed by the UK government — will provide satellite coverage for all of Taiwan by the end of the year.

The network would expand the communications options on the island. By the end of 2024, the nation aims to install over 700 satellite receivers, which will provide a backup network during any disaster.

The plans show the growing role that satellite firms are playing in global conflicts. They’ve been particularly prominent in Ukraine, where SpaceX’s Starlink has provided internet services since Russia’s full-scale invasion. The network has kept the country connected during disruption to terrestrial systems.

The war in Ukraine has also strengthened the case for the EU’s satellite constellation. Known as IRIS2, the network is designed to maintain internet access during crisis situations. The $6.2bn (€5.7bn) project is scheduled to launch by 2027.

“For the first time, the European Union will have its own telecommunications constellation, in particular in low orbits, the new frontier for telecommunication satellites,” MEP Christophe Grudler, rapporteur on the EU secure connectivity programme, said last year.

Meta’s litany of European privacy sanctions in 2023 just got a little longer. After a €390mn fine for illegal personalised ads, another €5.5mn hit for similar violations in WhatsApp, and a GDPR record €1.2bn for unsafe data transfers, this week yet another punishment arrived — and the sentence did not disappoint.

Norwegian regulators have demanded a gloriously round figure that would make Dr Evil proud: 1 MILLION crowns (€89,000) per day. The penalties are due to begin on August 14, but Meta wants a temporary injunction against the order, Reuters reports.

The ruling follows news last month that Norway will temporarily ban behavioural ads on Facebook and Instagram over privacy breaches. At the time, the country’s data protection authority, Datatilsynet, warned that Meta would also be fined if it didn’t address the violations.

The regulator cited various risks of using online behaviour for ad targeting, from fuelling discrimination to undermining democracy.

“Invasive commercial surveillance for marketing purposes is one of the biggest risks to data protection on the internet today. Users must have sufficient control over their own data, and any tracking must be limited,” Tobias Judin, head of Datatilsynet’s International Sector, said in a statement.

As the backlash grew, Meta pledged last week to seek consent from EU users for showing personalised ads. But this measure failed to impress Datatilsynet. 

“According to Meta, this will take several months, at the very earliest, for them to implement… And we don’t know what the consent mechanism will look like,” Judin told Reuters.

As a result, Datatilsynet will issue the daily fines until at least November 3 — but the regulator has also threatened to make them permanent.

For Meta, such sanctions have become painfully familiar. In May, the social media behemoth was found to have amassed over half of the €4bn in total fines for GDPR breaches.

Published August 8, 2023 – 12: 57 pm UTC

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Meta operates a highly targeted advertising model based on the swathes of personal data you share on its platforms, and it makes tens of billions of dollars off it each year. 

While these tactics are unlikely to end altogether in the near future, the company could soon offer users in the EU the chance to “opt-in” to the ads, the Wall Street Journal reports. 

Since April, Meta has offered users in Europe the chance to opt out from personalised ads but only if they complete a lengthy form on its help pages. That process has likely limited the number of people who have opted out. 

An opt-in option, however, would give users protection by default. That doesn’t mean you won’t be targeted by generalised ads, based on broader demographic data, such as your age, but it would prevent highly personalised ads based on, for instance, the videos you watch or the posts you share. Under EU law, a user has to be able to access Meta’s platforms even if they opt out.   

Meta said the change stems from an order in January by Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) to reassess the legal basis of how it targets ads. The proposal comes amid mounting pressure from EU privacy regulators.

In May, the DPC slapped Meta with a record €1.2bn fine over its transfer of user data to the US, which the watchdog said could violate citizens’ privacy under the GDPR. In fact, Meta has amassed half of the €5bn in fines issued under the GDPR since the law came into force five years ago. A new set of privacy rules, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), also forced the tech giant to delay the release of its new social app Threads in the EU.

As the EU tightens its grip and the fines pile up, it seems that the social media giant might finally be buckling. The change to its ads consent policy could come into effect in just three months’ time if the EU agrees to the proposal. 

Regulations limiting the company’s use of personal data for advertising could be a significant hit to its main source of income. The company said the Europe region generated 23% of its $31.5 billion in advertising revenue in the second quarter of this year.

However, Max Schrems, the privacy campaigner who filed the original forced consent GDPR complaint against Meta back in May 2018, says he will be closely monitoring exactly how Meta applies the new policy. 

“We will see if Meta is actually applying the consent requirement to all use of personal data for ads,” he said via his privacy rights not-for-profit noyb. “So far they talk about ‘highly personalized’ or ‘behavioural’ ads and it’s unclear what this means.

The GDPR covered all types of personalization, also on things like your age, which is not a ‘behaviour’. We will obviously continue litigation if Meta will not apply the law fully.”