AFP part of alliance to combat fake news in Argentina election

Facebook has taken down nearly 80 pages spreading fake news or using tactics that appeared aimed at unfairly influencing the European Parliament vote this weekend, an NGO reported Wednesday.

Sri Lankan social networks saw a surge in fake news after the Easter suicide bombings a month ago despite an official social media blackout, highlighting the inability of governments to contain disinformation, experts said.

Bemused followers of Japan's foreign minister were left scratching their heads on Tuesday after a bizarre tweet about bacon, sparking tongue-in-cheek speculation he could be tweeting classified information in code."Ah, bacon is in fact ^%£$+*•!%.......

E-commerce giant Amazon was on its way to running its own online neighborhood Monday after the internet's address keeper granted the ".amazon" domain to the company.

Queen Elizabeth II is in the search of a "Digital Communication Manager" for Buckingham Palace in London. At 93 years old, the British monarch is enhancing her presence in the digital world.

Internet star "Grumpy Cat" has died at the age of seven, her owners said early Friday."We are unimaginably heartbroken to announce the loss of our beloved Grumpy Cat," they said in a statement on Twitter.

Singapore's prime minister Friday rejected allegations the city-state's new law to combat "fake news" is aimed at stifling free speech, following criticism from rights groups and tech giants.

Hungary's government on Thursday accused Facebook of "censorship" of a pro-government media group after it complained its advertising accounts with the social media giant had been closed down.

The Singapore Red Cross said Thursday its website had been hacked and the personal data of more than 4,000 potential blood donors compromised in the latest cyber attack on the city-state.

India's election watchdog says it has forced Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to take down hundreds of posts during the country's election but experts say it is just a drop in an ocean of misinformation that has engulfed voters.

Facebook’s big privacy issues have led to a pretty hardline range of options. The company could pay up to $5 billion as a fine, and be subject to 20 years of privacy oversight following charges by the FTC for the Cambridge Analytica fiasco.

US pop icon-turned-actress Selena Gomez warned Wednesday that social media had been "terrible" for her generation, saying she tried to set a good example for her 150 million followers on Instagram.

A Malaysian teenager who posted an Instagram poll asking if she should live or die took her own life after a majority of respondents voted for the latter, sparking calls for an investigation.

Facebook announced Wednesday it would tighten access to its livestreaming feature as New Zealand's premier Jacinda Ardern and French leader Emmanuel Macron prepared to launch the global "Christchurch Call" initiative to tackle the spread of extremism o...

French President Emmanuel Macron and New Zealand's premier Jacinda Ardern will Wednesday host other world leaders and leading tech chiefs to launch an ambitious new initiative aimed at curbing extremism online.

Facebook announced Wednesday it is tightening access to livestreaming to prevent the rampant sharing of graphic video as took place with the Christchurch massacre.

Facebook has closed 23 mostly pro-government pages in Italy which were spreading fake news and anti-immigrant content, after an investigation by Avaaz, the civil rights group said on Monday.More than half of the pages, which had a total of almost 2.

New Zealand's leader Jacinda Ardern will join other world leaders in launching a "Christchurch call" to curb online extremism at an international meeting in Paris on Wednesday, following the worst mass killing in her country's recent history.

Facebook is unwittingly auto-generating content for terror-linked groups that its artificial intelligence systems do not recognize as extremist, according to a complaint made public on Thursday.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg travels to Paris on Friday for talks with French President Emmanuel Macron, who is pressing the social media giant to honour pledges to crack down on the spread of misinformation and hate speech.

Technology giant Google said Thursday Singapore's new law against "fake news" could hurt innovation, a crucial element in the high-tech sector which the government is developing as an economic growth driver.

The Chinese troll army suddenly struck one evening, bombarding the Facebook pages of two pro-Uighur groups with an array of verbal grenades and offensive images.

He is wheelchair-bound and has limited use of his hands but Alexander Gorbunov, the author of hugely popular social media accounts in Russia, has emerged as one of President Vladimir Putin's most vocal critics.

German police have shut down one of the world's largest illegal online markets in the so-called darkweb and arrested the three men allegedly running it, prosecutors said Friday.

While Sri Lanka Easter suicide attacks mastermind Zahran Hashim used social media to publicly call for the death of non-Muslims, he worked for months in private chatrooms to persuade six young men to sacrifice themselves, Muslim community leaders say.

Facebook on Thursday banned prominent conspiracy theorists including Infowars founder Alex Jones and the controversial black activist Louis Farrakhan in its latest push to crack down on hate content at the leading social network.

President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday signed into law a "sovereign internet" bill which will allow Russian authorities to isolate the country's internet, a move decried by rights groups.

Amazon has shocked thousands of merchants by notifying them that it would no longer place regular orders with them. Some merchant accounts were also shut down. The merchants lost their cashflow, and some seem to have been hit hard.

Photos of "Yeti footprints" posted online by the Indian army triggered a social media storm on Tuesday, with users ridiculing the military for propagating theories debunked by science.

Just like US President Donald Trump and France's Marine Le Pen, Spain's far-right party Vox has made a point of dominating social media with its hardline rhetoric ahead of elections on Sunday.

The Syrian presidency said Wednesday it had regained access to its official Instagram account a day after it was apparently blocked.

Twitter on Wednesday began making it easier to report tweets aimed at interfering with people voting, starting first in Europe and India.

New Zealand and France will bring together global leaders at a Paris summit next month aimed at stopping social media being used to organise and promote terrorism, the countries' leaders announced Wednesday.

For the past several months, hamburglars have been on the loose in Canada, hacking into mobile phone user's McDonald's apps. They have hijacked people's accounts and ordered hundreds of dollars of food for themselves.

The Syrian presidency Tuesday said its Instagram account has been blocked, one week after the photo-sharing website shut down the accounts of several Iranian Revolutionary Guards because of US sanctions.

Sri Lanka's decision to block social media following deadly suicide attacks highlights a growing distrust of online platforms, but critics said the move is likely to restrict the flow of important news and information as well as abusive content.

The Instagram accounts of several Iranian Revolutionary Guards commanders have been blocked, the Tabnak news website reported Tuesday, with the photo-sharing website saying it was complying with US sanctions.

Due to the prevalence of cyberbullying and concerns over data privacy, campaigners have proposed blocking young people from 'liking' or 'disliking' posts on social media. This has been picked up by the U.K. government, which is proposing new restrictions.

Russian lawmakers on Thursday approved a bill that would allow Moscow to cut the country's internet traffic from foreign servers, in a key second reading paving the way for legislation that activists fear is a step towards online isolation.