Facebook's $22-billion buyout of WhatsApp six years ago should have been blocked, the boss of France's antitrust watchdog, which is set to help review EU rules, has told Reuters. "Clearly, deals such as the Facebook/WhatsApp merger should probably not have been allowed," Isabelle de Silva said in an interview. "This is what allows players like Facebook and Google to create their value today."

London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Tuesday launched a new 800,000 pounds fund alongside Google.org to fight violent extremism and hate crimes in the British capital. The Shared Endeavour Fund, funded equally by Google UK and the Mayor's City Hall office, will be run by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue for grassroots organisations to bid for tiered grants of up to 50,000 pounds (USD 65,001).

A Parliamentary panel met representatives of Twitter and Google regarding its lack of effort to control pornographic and child abuse content on its platforms. Last week, Twitter informed that its policies allow users to post consensually filmed porn and not revenge porn or child abuse content. Meanwhile, Google replied that adult content is password protected for users below 18 years.