MTN Ghana Takes Legal Action Against Regulator, Turkey Pushes for Social Media Regulation, and India Bans 59 Chinese Apps

Africa

MFS Africa acquires Uganda’s Beyonic

Mobile payments hub connecting banks and telecoms operators, MFS Africa, has acquired Uganda’s Beyonic. The acquisition will offer micro, small, and medium-sized businesses the chance to manage all their digital transactions with clients from one platform, reports say. “With the MFS Africa Hub, we have been creating new digital pathways between mobile money users in Africa and the global economy. With the acquisition of Beyonic, we can now put this digital payment network at the service of those entrepreneurs whether they are SMEs, fintechs, or social impact organisations,” Dare Okoudjou, founder and chief executive officer (CEO) of MFS Africa said. The deal is subject to Tanzania’s Fair Competition Commission’s approval. The Uganda-based company provides enterprise-level digital payments solutions that involve 26 mobile money networks and 20 banks across nine countries. Johannesburg-based MFS Africa uses one API to connect more than 200 million mobile money wallets around Africa.

MTN Ghana pursues legal action against regulator

MTN Ghana has initiated a move to seek judicial review over its designation as a Significant Market Power (SMP) by the National Communications Authority, it has been revealed. Ghana’s largest telco reportedly has 70% of the market share, but it fears the SMP designation involved clear procedural breaches. “As such, MTN Ghana has after much consultation, and as a last resort, made the difficult decision to resort to the law courts for redress in the form of a judicial review of NCA’s decision, to ensure the observance of the requirements of procedural fairness,” CEO Selorm Adadevoh said. MTN Ghana said the designation would trigger a host of regulations that could freeze its growth and affect competitiveness in the market. The telco also said it expects the regulator to follow global best practices and applicable legislations to ensure fairness and competition in the industry.

Europe

UK’s competition watchdog finds Google and Facebook too powerful

The Competition and Markets Authority has said both Facebook and Google are two powerful companies whose dominance needs to be curbed, the BBC has reported. The watchdog fears that their dominance in digital marketing has raised barriers to entry, saying it was “concerned that they have developed such unassailable market positions that rivals can no longer compete on equal terms…” Google receives over 90% of the GBP 7.3 billion search advertising revenue in the UK yearly while Facebook collects GBP 5.5 billion of the online display ad market. While the CMA acknowledged their importance to small firms, it was worried about the level of access they had to user data. The watchdog also raised concerns over Apple accepting about $1.5 billion to make Google the default search engine on the Safari web browser as it raised the barrier of entry for Google’s rivals.

Turkey to regulate social media or shut them down

Turkey has announced that it is determined to regulate social media by introducing new regulations, Reuters has reported. President Erdogan said his AK Party would introduce these laws to curb the spread of immoral acts after his daughter was insulted on Twitter. Users who had shared the content of the insult were arrested and detained by Turkish police. “These platforms do not suit this nation. We want to shut down, control (them) by bringing (a bill) to parliament as soon as possible,” the president said. As part of the regulations, social media firms would have to appoint representatives in Turkey to respond to legal requests which were being ignored at the present.

The Americas

#StopHateForProfit campaign boycotts Facebook ads

More than 400 brands have kick-started the #StopHateForProfit campaign by boycotting Facebook ads for the month of July, it has been reported. Following refusal by Facebook to ban and remove hate speech, civil rights organisations turned to multinational companies to put pressure on the tech company. The result was a decision to stop advertising on Facebook at least for the whole of July. Facebook had tried a last-ditch attempt to stop the boycott from kicking off but failed as advertisers weren’t convinced of the company’s efforts. The group listed almost a dozen demands, including giving victims of severe harassment the option of speaking to a Facebook employee. Facebook has since announced that it would allow its hate speech controls to be audited. Companies like Coca-Cola, Unilever, Lego, and The North Face have joined the campaign.

Developers exploit Facebook flaw to harvest data

A Facebook flaw allowed 5,000 developers to illegally harvest user data, a BBC report has said. Apps that have not been used for 90 days automatically stop collecting data from users. Due to a flaw in how it recorded inactivity, however, Facebook said the lockout wasn’t always effective. This led to illegal access to user information. “Recently, we discovered that in some instances apps continued to receive the data that people had previously authorised, even if it appeared they hadn’t used the app in the last 90 days,” Facebook said. While Facebook said it corrected the issue once it became aware, it further raised the question about how third-party apps were accessing data on the social media platform.

Asia

India bans 59 Chinese apps

India has banned 59 Chinese apps over what it calls a threat to national security, it has been revealed. Among the apps were popular video-sharing app TikTok, and messaging app WeChat. India’s Ministry of Information Technology said the ban was the result of numerous complaints about apps that were stealing user data and transmitting them illegally. The ministry added that, “The compilation of these data, its mining and profiling by elements hostile to national security and defence of India, which ultimately impinges upon the sovereignty and integrity of India, is a matter of very deep and immediate concern which requires emergency measures.” However, critics claim the cause of the ban is a land border dispute in the Himalayan region that has cost about 20 Indian lives. The Indian prime minister has since shut his Weibo account.

Tokyo airport introduces automated wheelchairs

The Tokyo airport has introduced automated rideables for persons with limited mobility as part of COVID-19 social-distancing protocols, Reuters has reported. The roll-out of the autonomous vehicles are critical as the airport faces labour shortages. The first rideables come with lidar and camera technology to aid autonomous movement and will run between passenger and security gates. Whill, the start-up behind the innovation has raised more than $100 million in funding.