Researchers at an Israeli cybersecurity firm said Wednesday they had found a flaw in WhatsApp that could allow hackers to modify and send fake messages in the popular social messaging app.

A German court handed down lengthy jail sentences Tuesday to a couple for repeatedly sexually abusing their young son and selling him to pedophiles online, in a shocking case that raised pointed questions about the competence of child protection services.

Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Chinese telecoms behemoth Huawei, likens the company to a ruthless "wolf" tirelessly running down its prey, an ethos that could soon make it the apex predator of the smartphone world.

Facebook has asked major US banks to share customer data to allow it to develop new services on the social network's Messenger texting platform, a banking source told AFP on Monday.

Tens of thousands of South Korean women staged a mass rally in Seoul Saturday to protest against spycam porn, urging tougher punishments for peeping Toms as anger over the growing scourge boils over. 

The head of Egypt's Coptic Church, Pope Tawadros II, has shut down his Facebook page, saying it was a "waste of time", after the church ordered monks off social media.

Facebook stunned and angered organizers of a protest against white supremacists when it disabled their Washington event's page this week, saying it and others had been created by "bad actors" misusing the social media platform.

The company said the page — one of 32 pages or accounts it removed Tuesday from Facebook and Instagram — violated its ban on "coordinated inauthentic behavior" and may be linked to an account created by Russia's Internet Research Agency, a so-called troll farm that has sown discord in the U.S.

Google is crafting a search engine that would meet China's draconian censorship rules, a company employee told AFP on Thursday, in a move decried by human rights activists.

Twitter shares took a beating Friday as quarterly results showed a drop in users of the messaging platform, overshadowing news of a third straight quarterly profit.

Twitter said it posted a profit of $100 million in the second quarter as revenue rose 24 percent to $711 million.

Google parent Alphabet shares lifted Monday on a stronger-than-expected earnings report for the past quarter, as the tech giant's results eased concerns over huge fines imposed by the European Union for antitrust actions.