Internet Freedom Weekly: News Recap, August 24th–28th 2026
Meta settled for $18 billion. Flock's CEO was caught on tape lying to police. Russia launched an enemies registry. We published 88 ID verification breaches in one timeline. Brazil fined TikTok. Russia launched a registry of perceived enemies. Let’s get into it.
Meta Settled for up to $18 Billion — After Five Days
Five days of trial. A former researcher testifying that his team knew default safety features would help teens but was told not to worry about adoption rates "because the team exists partially to protect the company against the upcoming lawsuits." Then a settlement. Meta will pay up to $18 billion and implement default time limits, night mode, school-hour mutes, hidden likes, and algorithmic feed alternatives. These are design decisions. Internal research showed they'd help. Meta chose engagement. $18 billion later, they're required.
Flock’s CEO Told Police a 404 Media Story Was False. Records Say Otherwise
A recording caught CEO Garrett Langley calling 404 Media's abortion tracking story "entirely false" in a private meeting with Ohio officials. Court records show Texas authorities discussed charging the woman with a crime on the same day they performed the Flock search. In the same call: "Let me handle The New York Times, you handle your local media. They want to hear from you — you know your reporters, they'll pick up a sob story." This follows a pattern: Flock lied to a city council about heat maps. A former employee says he was told the company had no ICE access. It did.
Russia Launched a Public Registry of “Enemies of the People”
The Justice Ministry launched a database stripping legal rights from people convicted in absentia who live abroad: frozen bank accounts, no real estate transactions, no Gosuslugi access, no online banking, no consular services. It went live August 21. Currently one entry — a fictional placeholder. State Duma Speaker Volodin said it would be used for political persecution of dissenters. That was his description, not a critic's.
Brazil Fined TikTok $30 Million for Collecting Children’s Data
The fine targets TikTok's "logged-out feed" — a feature available in Brazil but not in the US or EU that lets users browse without an account and bypasses age checks. An estimated 8 million children are affected. ByteDance must erase the data and build a real youth-protection framework. This is what enforcement-first regulation looks like: targeting a deliberate product decision, not building surveillance infrastructure to contain the consequences of it.
Reform UK Wants to Scrap GDPR
Replace it with a New Zealand-style "light-touch" privacy law. No right to erasure. Weaker enforcement. Framed as cutting red tape. The EU only grants data adequacy to countries with "essentially equivalent" protection. New Zealand doesn't have it. The week in which Brazil's fine, France's court ruling, and Russia's registry all showed data protection doing real work is probably not the ideal moment to propose weakening the UK's version.
We Documented 88 Identity Verification Breaches Since 2011
At least 2.15 billion records affected on a confirmed basis. In 41 of the 88 incidents, what leaked included the actual documents — ID scans, selfies, biometric templates. Data that can never be rotated. 42% of incidents date from 2024 to August 2026 — the period mandatory verification spread fastest. Every major verification vendor has appeared in the timeline. AU10TIX, IDMerit, Sumsub, Persona, inVOID. The wall you're forced to hand your ID to is exactly as breachable as everything else on the internet.
Why Governments Keep Reaching for the Kill Switch
313 shutdowns across 52 countries in 2025 — the highest ever recorded. Not a single day without at least one disruption somewhere. Conflict was the leading trigger, but six countries shut the internet down during school exams. The first shutdown requires political friction. The fifth is administrative. Myanmar: 95. India: 65. The same infrastructure built for a "necessary" shutdown gets reused for smaller provocations with less justification each time. That's normalization.
The Bodies Quietly Shaping the Future Internet
ICANN, the IETF, the Council of Europe, UNESCO — they're writing the rules that determine what the internet can and can't do years before any parliament votes. When the IETF standardized Encrypted Client Hello, Russia blocked it and severed hundreds of thousands of websites. When the Council of Europe opened its AI treaty, it defined what binding international AI obligations look like. These processes are technically open and practically inaccessible. The fight needs to show up earlier.
Public Schools, Private Platforms, and Your Student’s Data
Google Workspace and Microsoft Teams are enterprise products adapted for classrooms. They're free because schools generate usage data and create vendor lock-in. Students can't opt out when the platform is how they submit homework. 35 countries are already building publicly governed digital learning platforms. The question isn't whether technology should be in schools — it's whether the infrastructure delivering public education answers to the public.
Four Former Flock Employees Arrested for Misusing the Surveillance Network
Three former Savannah officers and one civilian charged with using Flock's system for non-law-enforcement purposes. An audit caught it after the fact. Flock's fastest-growing product is now 60 mph drones reading license plates from 2,000 feet. The surveillance network is expanding. Accountability is reactive — it catches misuse when someone looks.
Be part of the resistance, quietly.
Get Mysterium VPN
Gintarė is a cybersecurity writer at Mysterium VPN, where she explores online privacy, VPN technology, and the latest digital threats in editorial pieces. With hands-on experience researching and writing about data protection and digital freedom, Gintarė makes complex security topics accessible and actionable.
Related Articles
.png)
