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Updated October 17th, 2021 at 19:50 IST

Kazakhstan PM Askar Mamin loses Facebook access after cyber attack

Kazakhstan's government is negotiating with Social Media behemoth Facebook to restore the Prime Minister Askar Mamin's account after a cyberattack.

Reported by: Aparna Shandilya
Kazakhstan
Image: PrimeMinisterEN@Twitter/Pixabay | Image:self
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Kazakhstan's government is negotiating with Social Media giant Facebook to restore Prime Minister Askar Mamin's account after a cyberattack that took down at least three pages on Sunday. Zarina Nurlanova, a government spokesperson, stated on Facebook, "Official pages of Kazakhstan's prime minister… became temporarily unavailable due to a phishing attack."

She stated that information would be available on the government's website as well as on social media platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, and VK. Phishing attacks attempt to dupe users into granting access to Facebook hackers posing as legitimate entities. Phishing links are sent to targets, who are duped into clicking on them.

A Kazakh news website that dared to report on the family of the country's first president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, was taken offline almost immediately. As a new law regulating social media moves through parliament, journalists see this as the first salvo in a new wave of censorship. The Minister of Information and Communication, however, denied any involvement in the block, that was lifted on October 14 after ten days.

Facebook to Expand Harassment Policy

Following congressional testimony from a whistleblower who faulted the social media giant for not doing enough to stop harmful content, Facebook announced Wednesday that it will expand its harassment policies to remove more harmful content. Facebook will prohibit content that degrades or sexualizes public figures, such as celebrities, elected officials, and others in the public eye, under the new, more detailed harassment policy. Similar content about private individuals is already prohibited under existing policies.

Another change will give government dissidents, journalists, and human rights activists around the world more protection from harassment. Social media harassment has been used to silence journalists and activists in many countries. Finally, the Menlo Park, California-based company announced that all coordinated harassment, in which a group of people work together to bully another user, will be prohibited. All users will be affected by this change. The changes come after the company's handling of hate speech, misinformation, and negative content has been widely criticised.

(With inputs from agencies)

Image: PrimeMinisterEN@Twitter/Pixabay

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Published October 17th, 2021 at 19:50 IST

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