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By: Nicole Araujo (African Antitrust) In this piece for African Antitrust, author Nicole Araujo explores the Nigerian Competition and Consumer Protection Tribunal’s recent decision to uphold a $220 million fine issued by the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) against WhatsApp and Meta. Alongside the main fine, the Tribunal imposed an additional $35,000 administrative penalty to cover costs from a 38-month investigation. This outcome signals Nigeria’s intensifying regulatory stance toward major technology platforms operating in its digital space. The fine originated from findings that WhatsApp and Meta engaged in discriminatory data handling and violated Nigerian data protection laws, affecting over 51 million users. Andreas Stargard of Primerio noted that the FCCPC uncovered unauthorized user data sharing and inadequate consent mechanisms, with discriminatory practices compared to other global markets. He pointed out that the FCCPC’s jurisdiction as a consumer protection body gave it leverage in areas typically overseen by data authorities, and referenced the Commission’s mixed enforcement record, including a recent setback in the Dangote refinery case. Meta contested the fine on 22 grounds, citing issues such as procedural flaws, unclear directives, and the impracticality of complying within the FCCPC’s timeframe. Their legal team argued the Commission’s orders were vague

New Delhi: A former United Nations (UN) official has warned people against a new One-Time Password (OTP) scam and urged her contacts not to entertain any requests for money from her number. In a post on X, UN former assistant secretary-general Lakshmi Puri said she received a phone call from a saved number and the caller asked her to share an OTP they "mistakenly" sent to her contact. The moment she shared the OTP, her WhatsApp stopped working and multiple contacts on her phone started receiving calls from her number asking for money. "I received a call from a number saved on my device yesterday evening. Since the person was known to me and she requested an OTP, which she said she had mistakenly sent to my number, I gave it to her. Following this, my WhatsApp stopped working and some people in my contacts started receiving calls from my number asking for money," the former Indian diplomat said. Ms Puri has asked her friends and acquaintances not to respond to any such calls or requests to send money from her number. She wrote, "This is to caution all my friends and acquaintances who have my number saved on their

David Nemer is the author of  Technology of the Oppressed: Inequity and the Digital Mundane in Favelas of Brazil. In the heart of Vitória, Brazil, there is a collection of favelas (urban shantytowns) known as the Território do Bem (Territory of Good)—a name given by its residents that reclaims dignity in a cityscape often marked by neglect. It is here that the CalangoLab team and I conducted a participatory study to understand how technology shapes information access and misinformation exposure among marginalized communities. The findings of our report, Technology and Disinformation in the Território do Bem , are as revealing as they are urgent. They highlight a digital landscape defined not by inclusion but by containment. In this landscape, Meta, through its platforms such as WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook, dominates not only access but also shapes what people believe to be true. Yet, the community is far from passive. People know when they're being misled. They know who holds the power. And most importantly, they know who's being left behind. The Digital Cage Smartphones are the gateway to the Internet for nearly all residents—92.8% of our 404 respondents own one. But the way people connect matters. Most rely on mobile

News Shutterstock image Erik Gruenwedel May 1, 2025 Meta disclosed that its portfolio of social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, collectively generated more than $21.7 billion in operating income on revenue of $41.9 billion in the first quarter, ended March 31. That compared with operating income of $17.7 billion on revenue of $36 billion in the previous-year period. The average price per ad increased by 10% year-over-year, while overall revenue increased 16% to $42.3 billion. The company ended the fiscal period with 76,834 employees, up 11% from 69,219 employees in the previous-year period. “We’ve had a strong start to an important year, our community continues to grow and our business is performing very well,” founder/CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. Subscribe HERE to the FREE Media Play News Daily Newsletter!

What began as one of the most anticipated days of the tournament on Monday came to a halt at the Mutua Madrid Open, as a widespread power outage across parts of Spain, Portugal and southern France forced the suspension of six Round of 16 matches. Only two were completed -- Coco Gauff defeated Belinda Bencic, while Mirra Andreeva held off Yuliia Starodubtseva. Those six remaining matches were started and completed Tuesday, with top seeds Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek both advancing to the quarterfinals. The day delivered a full slate of action, wrapping up a round delayed -- but not derailed -- by an unusual interruption. No. 4 Coco Gauff def. Belinda Bencic 6-4, 6-2 Gauff has now reached the quarterfinals at every current WTA 1000 event except her home tournament in Miami. Watch: Gauff reaches first career Madrid quarterfinal  No. 7 Mirra Andreeva def. Yuliia Starodubtseva  With Monday's victory, the Madrid Open became the first tournament where Andreeva has recorded 10 career wins at a single WTA event. Watch: Mirra Andreeva ends Starodubtseva run to return to Madrid quarters No. 2 Iga Swiatek def. No. 13 Diana Shnaider 6-0, 6-7 (3), 6-4 Swiatek has now reached 17 consecutive clay-court

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 Apr 29, 2025  Ravie Lakshmanan Artificial Intelligence / Data Protection Popular messaging app WhatsApp on Tuesday unveiled a new technology called Private Processing to enable artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities in a privacy-preserving manner. "Private Processing will allow users to leverage powerful optional AI features – like summarizing unread messages or editing help – while preserving WhatsApp's core privacy promise," the Meta-owned service said in a statement shared with The Hacker News. With the introduction of the latest feature, the idea is to facilitate the use of AI features while still keeping users' messages private. It's expected to be made available in the coming weeks. The capability, in a nutshell, allows users to initiate a request to process messages using AI within a secure environment called the confidential virtual machine (CVM) such that no other party, including Meta and WhatsApp, can access them. Confidential processing is one of the three tenets that underpin the feature, the others being - Enforceable guarantees, which cause the system to fail or become publicly discoverable when attempts to modify confidential processing guarantees are detected Verifiable transparency, which allows users and independent researchers to audit the behavior of the system Non-targetability, which prevents a

The end-to-end encrypted communication app WhatsApp, used by roughly 3 billion people around the world, will roll out cloud-based AI capabilities in the coming weeks that are designed to preserve WhatsApp’s defining security and privacy guarantees while offering users access to message summarization and composition tools. Meta has been incorporating generative AI features across its services that are built on its open source large language model, Llama. And WhatsApp already incorporates a light blue circle that gives users access to the Meta AI assistant. But many users have balked at this addition, given that interactions with the AI assistant aren’t shielded from Meta the way end-to-end encrtyped WhatsApp chats are. The new feature, dubbed Private Processing, is meant to address these concerns with what the company says is a carefully architected and purpose-built platform devoted to processing data for AI tasks without the information being accessible to Meta, WhatsApp, or any other party. While initial reviews by researchers of the scheme’s integrity have been positive, some note that the move toward AI features could ultimately put WhatsApp on a slippery slope. “WhatsApp is targeted and looked at by lots of different researchers and threat actors. That means internally it has

All 16 players who started Monday still had a shot at the Madrid Open title as Round of 16 play got underway. With four of the top five seeds and six unseeded players among the final 16, it’s shaping up to be one of the biggest days of the season. Here’s how the matches are playing out -- and we’ll keep you posted as results come in. No. 4 Coco Gauff def. Belinda Bencic 6-4, 6-2 Gauff has now reached the quarterfinals at every current WTA 1000 event except her home tournament in Miami. Watch: Gauff reaches first career Madrid quarterfinal  No. 7 Mirra Andreeva def. Yuliia Starodubtseva  With Monday's victory, the Madrid Open became the first tournament where Mirra Andreeva has recorded 10 career wins at a single WTA event. No. 2 Iga Swiatek vs. No. 13 Diana Shnaider (1 p.m., 6 a.m. ET) Head-to-head: 0-0. No. 5 Madison Keys vs. No. 19 Donna Vekic (1:30 p.m., 6:30 a.m. ET) Head-to-head: 3-1, Keys, who won the most recent match (in three sets) last month in the Round of 16 at Indian Wells. No. 24 Marta Kostyuk vs. Anastasia Potapova (3 p.m., 9 a.m. ET) Head-to-head: 2-1, Potapova, though they

TJ Dhir | CBC News | Posted: April 28, 2025 4:07 PM | Last Updated: 1 hour ago Use of WhatsApp is 'poor administrative practice' says privacy commissioner Image | Nunavut legislative assembly Caption: The use of artificial intelligence and WhatsApp was discussing during hearings of the Standing Committee on Oversight of Government Operations and Public Accounts. (Matisse Harvey/Radio-Canada) The Nunavut government says it's working on guidelines for employees about using artificial intelligence. The topic came up Friday during hearings of the Standing Committee on Oversight of Government Operations and Public Accounts. The use of unapproved third-party applications, like WhatsApp, was also discussed. Mark Witzaney, the government's director of access to information and protection of privacy, says the territory started talking about AI guidelines last December, and that those discussions are going well. "The issue with AI is that it is evolving quickly and there's a lot we don't know because it's moving so quickly," he said. Witzaney said the government has concerns about AI, including how it gathers information from the internet, its impact on the environment, and its ability to steal artwork and duplicate it elsewhere for someone else. He said in light of these concerns and the