Has Beijing Doing Cyber Espionage on the African Union?

Even though they had donated the building and the computer equipment, has Beijing been conducting cyber espionage work on the African Union headquarters during the last five years?

By Ringo Bones 

The 200-million US dollar headquarters in Addis Ababa – including the computer system - was fully funded and built by China and opened to great fanfare back in 2012. Many in the West see it as a symbol of Beijing’s thrust for influence in Africa and access to the continent’s natural resources. Then an article published back in Friday, January 2, 2018 in the French publication Le Monde quoting anonymous African Union sources – which included IT technicians – reported that data from computers in the Chinese-built building had been transferred nightly to Mainland Chinese servers during the past five years. After the massive hack was discovered a year ago, the building’s IT system including the servers was changes, according to Le Monde. During the sweep for bugs after the discovery, microphones hidden in desks and the walls were also detected and removed, the newspaper reported. 

Sadly, despite of the report’s credibility, Chinese and African Union officials that gathered in Addis Ababa for the bloc’s annual summit both denied Le Monde’s report. China’s ambassador to the African Union, Kuang Weilin, recently called the article “ridiculous and preposterous” and said its publication was intended to put pressure on relations between Beijing and the African continent. 

When asked about the report, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, who assumed the African Union chairmanship this year, said that he did not know anything about it. “But in any case, I don’t think there is anything done here that we would not like people to know,” he told reporters after a meeting of African heads-of-state. “I don’t think spying is the specialty of the Chinese, We have spies all over the place in this world,” Kagame said. “But I will not have worried about being spied on in this building.” Kagame’s only concern, he said, was that the African Union should have built its own headquarters, instead of China. “I would only have wished that in Africa we got our act together earlier on. We should have been able to build our own building.”

Are Filipino Facebook Content Moderators Compromised?

Rumors are abound online, but are Filipino Facebook content moderators actually bribed to remove content critical to Vladimir Putin, the Beijing Communist Party and Pres. Rodrigo Duterte from Facebook? 

By: Ringo Bones 

I first heard it back in Friday, February 2, 2018 that a whistleblower had acquired proof that Filipino Facebook content moderators had been receiving bribes from various entities to advance their respective political ends by removing Facebook posts critical of them. Even though someone from the BBC had taken the story seriously but is still awaiting verification on the authenticity of the material – which means it could be a big story two weeks from now. But is there any truth to the story that Filipino Facebook content moderators are taking bribes? 

Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook started to hire additional personnel in the form of “content moderators” back in 2014 to control the tide of “propaganda posts” by the so-called Islamic State that showcased beheadings of western NGOs, charity workers and journalists caught up in their violent and bloody empire building in the wake of the Syrian civil war. It is not just “gruesome beheadings” that these so-called moderators block from being posted on Facebook. These also include inappropriate posts of pornographic nature – i.e. the so-called “dick pics” and their ilk. But since the so-called Islamic State is now in the wan, many of this so-called “Facebook Content Moderators” have branched out to do other tasks - sadly, they have the power to declare whichever of your posts is “spam” at their own discretion if they are not caught by their superiors.

Filipino Facebook Content Moderators are typically paid around 24,000 pesos a month – around 376 UK pounds (quid) or a little over 500 US dollars – which is twice that the typical salary of a public school teacher here in the Philippines. Rumors started to circulate around the middle of last year after one of the moderators who is actually working for Amnesty International infiltrated the center after it was found out that there are Filipino Facebook content moderators who are paid by the Kremlin with up to 10,000 US dollars if they block video posts on Facebook that are taken by Amnesty International operatives in Syria that show Russian troops and planes loyal to Bashar Al Assad committing war crimes. 

American and European non-government organizations and charity groups critical of the current Philippine president who recently compared himself to Adolf Hitler – i.e. Rodrigo Duterte – on his handling of the Philippines’ so-called drug problem got their Facebook pages either blocked or made “unvisitable” in the Philippines. Should there be an ethics committee serving as an oversight on Filipino Facebook Content Moderators?