The charges against Pavel Durov increases pressure on Brussels to enforce new
European law on the platform
The surprise arrest of the Russian-born co-founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov,
after he stepped off his private jet in Paris last Saturday night, has brought
the one-time fringe social network under the glare of the spotlight like never
before.
Durov’s arrest – after an investigation by the Paris prosecutor into organised
crime, child sex abuse images, fraud and money laundering on the platform – also
raises the stakes for the European Union, which has adopted the world’s most
ambitious laws to police the internet, notably the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Coming into force in November 2022, the DSA targets online platforms “too big to
care” – in the words of the EU commissioner, Thierry Breton – putting demands on
internet firms to remove illegal content, protect children, tackle
disinformation and other online harms.
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Tag - European Union
Serbian green campaigner who co-drafted declaration against lithium exploitation
now fears for his safety
When Aleksandar Matković received the first message threatening his life, he
thought it was a prank. The text, sent to his Telegram account just after
midnight on 14 August read: “We will follow you until you disappear, scum.”
Matković is one of the campaigners who have been at the forefront of widespread
protests against plans to develop a massive lithium mine in Serbia. He said: “At
first I thought someone was joking but during the morning I got another message,
saying ‘how is the struggle against Rio Tinto going?’ from another profile I
didn’t know, and the app displayed the sender’s distance as just 500 [metres]
away.”
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The 9% tariff is much less than the up to 36.3% others face after investigation
into Beijing’s ‘unfair’ subsidies of EVs
* Business live – latest updates
Tesla will face a 9% levy on its Chinese-made cars exported to the EU, the
European Commission has said, as it issued an update on its sweeping
investigation into Beijing’s “unfair” subsidies of electric vehicles.
The tariff on Tesla – far lower than the 21.3% average on companies that
cooperated with the EU investigation and 36.3% on those that did not – came
after the California-headquartered firm requested individual treatment as part
of the wider Brussels inquiry.
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Players in EU can access game blocked by Apple and Google by installing it from
app store of publisher Epic Games
The video game Fortnite is back on mobile phones, four years after Apple and
Google pulled it from their app stores. Android users worldwide can install the
game, along with two new titles from the publisher, Epic Games, by downloading
the company’s new app store.
However, only iPhone users in the EU can follow suit as Epic becomes the highest
profile company yet to adopt the looser restrictions forced on Apple by the
Digital Markets Act (DMA).
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Change in policy means developers will be able to communicate with customers
outside App Store
Apple on Thursday changed its policy in the European Union to allow developers
to communicate with their customers outside its App Store after the commission
charged the iPhone maker in June for breaching the bloc’s tech rules.
The commission had said that under most of the business terms, Apple allows
steering only through “link-outs”, meaning that app developers can include a
link in their app that redirects the customer to a web page where the customer
can conclude a contract.
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‘Unpredictable’ privacy regulations prompt Facebook owner to scrap regional
plans for multimodal Llama
* Business live – latest updates
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta will not release an advanced version of its artificial
intelligence model in the EU, blaming the decision on the “unpredictable”
behaviour of regulators.
The owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp is preparing to issue its Llama
model in multimodal form, meaning it is able to work across text, video, images
and audio instead of just one format. Llama is an open source model, allowing it
to be freely downloaded and adapted by users.
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Preliminary findings suggest X breached Digital Services Act in three ways and
could be fined 6% of global turnover
* Business live – latest updates
Elon Musk’s X has been warned by the EU it potentially faces large fines after
regulators said its blue-tick system for users is deceptive and in breach of its
landmark social media rules.
Announcing preliminary findings from an investigation, the European Commission
said the platform did not comply with the Digital Services Act. X faces fines of
up to 6% of its global turnover if the preliminary findings are confirmed.
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