2.2 million advertisements and 120,000 posts removed from Facebook and Instagram ahead of the presidential election
Nagorno-Karabakh: Armenia accuses Azerbaijan of violating new humanitarian truce. A week after a first cease-fire, concluded but never respected between the two parties, Yerevan and Baku negotiated on Saturday evening a cessation of hostilities which was supposed to come into force on Sunday, October 18, at midnight. But hours later, Armenia accused Azerbaijan of carrying out artillery and rocket fire, the BBC reports. The resumption of fighting three weeks ago left hundreds of people dead. After a failed first ceasefire attempt under Moscow's aegis, the conflict escalated again on Saturday. Azerbaijan has vowed to “avenge” the deaths of thirteen civilians, including children, who perished the night before in a night-time bombing of Gandja, the country's second city.
For Iran, the UN arms embargo has been lifted. Tehran ruled on Sunday that restrictions on it expired on October 18, under the Iranian international nuclear agreement and Security Council resolution 2,231. "The Islamic Republic of Iran can therefore obtain the necessary weapons and equipment from any source without any legal restriction and only on the basis of its defensive needs," said the text published by the Iranian government. The United States and Israel are strongly opposed to it. Moscow, on the other hand, confirmed in September its willingness to develop military cooperation with Tehran once the embargo was lifted. China also makes no secret of its intention to sell arms to Iran after October 18. The European troika (France, Germany, United Kingdom) is more reserved on the issue, notes Al Jazeera. In a joint statement in July, the three most influential countries in the EU said that while they are determined to fully implement Resolution 2,231 of the nuclear deal, they also consider lifting the embargo on weapons “would have major implications for regional security and stability”.
United States: 2.2 million advertisements and 120,000 posts removed from Facebook and Instagram ahead of the presidential election. Facebook vice-chairman Nick Clegg said in an interview with the Journal du Dimanche on Sunday that the content had been removed due to a risk of attempted obstruction of voter turnout. Facebook has been increasing efforts for months not to repeat the trauma of 2016, when its network was used for massive voter manipulation operations, carried out from Russia, during the presidential polls in the United States and on Brexit in the Kingdom -United. Facebook has also changed its algorithm to reduce the visibility of some left-wing sites like Mother Jones, a magazine that noticed a sharp drop in its audiences in 2019, says The Verge. Some social network officials felt the change was necessary to offset an algorithm change in 2017 that would sharply reduce traffic to conservative sites.
