Google-owned YouTube said Thursday it was taking action to close a loophole that enabled users to share comments and links on child pornography over the video-sharing service.

The response came after a YouTube creator this week revealed what he called a "wormhole" that allowed comments and connections on child porn alongside innocuous videos.

Samsung on Wednesday unveiled its first folding handset as part of an effort to rev up demand in the slumping smartphone sector.

A scathing British parliamentary report on Monday branded Facebook "digital gangsters" who failed to fight the spread of fake news and violated data privacy.

Pakistani authorities Wednesday vowed to carry out a "massive" crackdown targeting hate speech and extremism on social media, as a minister boasted arrests have already been made. 

A French court has ordered Google to remove "abusive" clauses from the service conditions it requires consumers to accept to the internet giant's services, a consumer group said Wednesday.

Canada's public broadcaster said Tuesday it found in a trove of Twitter messages evidence of possible foreign actors trying to sow divisions between Canadians on pipelines, migrants and other hot-button issues.

Russian lawmakers on Tuesday backed a bill that could cut off the country's internet traffic from servers abroad which critics say is a step towards censorship and possibly an isolated network like in North Korea.

The bill passed its first reading by 334 votes to 47 after an unusually heated debate in the State Duma, where many lawmakers from minority parties criticized it as too costly and argued that it was not written by experts. 

Britain on Friday urged all social media platforms to join Instagram and curb self-harm posts after a UK teen who went online to read about suicide took her own life.

Germany's Federal Competition Office (FCO) said Thursday it would impose new limits on how Facebook collects data from subsidiaries Whatsapp and Instagram, as well as third-party websites with embedded Facebook features such as "Like" buttons.

"In future, Facebook will no longer be allowed to force its users to agree to the practically unrestricted collection and assigning of non-Facebook data to their Facebook user accounts," FCO chief Andreas Mundt said, insisting on "voluntary consent" for every kind of data collection.

Google parent Alphabet reported quarterly earnings beating Wall Street expectations on Monday, but shares slipped, with investors apparently focused on rising costs at the technology giant.

Alphabet reported a profit of $8.9 billion in the fourth quarter on revenue that was up 22 percent to $39.3 billion from the same period a year earlier.