MANILA: Facebook has emerged as the top site for wildlife trafficking in the Philippines, a watchdog said Friday, with thousands of endangered crocodiles, snakes and turtles illegally traded in just three months.
Monitoring network TRAFFIC said Facebook had not done enough to shut down the trade, which saw more than 5,000 reptiles from 115 species put up for sale on its discussion groups from June to August 2016 alone.
“Facebook is the platform of choice for illegal traders in the Philippines because of its popularity and insufficient internal monitoring enforcement,” the report said.
“This magnitude of commerce in live wild animals online is just mind-boggling,” said Serene Chng, TRAFFIC’s program officer for Southeast Asia.
The groups where live reptile advertisements were posted had more than 350,000 members when the study began, with numbers growing 11 percent in three months.
Most transactions were completed using Facebook’s Messenger service, the report said, adding that trading continues on the platform despite periodic government raids.
Over half the species bought and sold were protected internationally and by the Philippines’ wildlife act, which carries jail terms and fines.
The radiated tortoise, black spotted turtle, Bengal monitor lizard, and Dumeril’s boa — all threatened with extinction — were among them, as well as the critically endangered Philippine crocodile and Philippine forest turtle.
In one transaction, a trader also used an unnamed ride-sharing service to deliver wildlife to a buyer.
“This small snapshot reinforces how social media has taken over as the new epicenter of wildlife trade,” Chng said.
A statement from Facebook’s PR firm said the site does not tolerate wildlife trade and is working with TRAFFIC to tackle the problem.
“Facebook does not allow the sale and trade of endangered animals and we will not hesitate to remove any material that violates our community standards when it is reported to us,” it said.
TRAFFIC’s regional spokeswoman Elizabeth John said that Facebook was “seeking additional information in order to take action” and that the watchdog was helping it liaise with Philippine authorities.
Findings from the study were used to launch raids on suspected illegal traders in Manila and other areas last year, TRAFFIC said, with numerous arrests made.
Philippine customs authorities also intercepted packages with illegal wildlife destined for China, Sweden, and the US.
Facebook top choice for Philippine wildlife traders, watchdog says
Facebook top choice for Philippine wildlife traders, watchdog says
Amazon’s AWS reports outage after UAE datacenter struck by ‘objects’
- AWS confirmed sparks and fire after objects hit UAE data center causing disruptions to Emirate and Bahrain regions
- Full recovery expected to “be many hours away”
LONDON: Amazon’s cloud-computing facilities in the Middle East faced power and connectivity issues on Monday after unidentified “objects” struck its data center in the United Arab Emirates.
The objects had triggered a fire on Sunday that forced authorities to eventually cut power to two clusters of Amazon data centers in the UAE, with restoration expected to take several more hours, according to Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) status page.
Localized power issues impacted AWS services in both the UAE and neighboring Bahrain, according to the page. Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank said its platforms and mobile app were unavailable due to a region-wide IT disruption, although it did not directly link the outage to the AWS incident.
While Amazon did not identify the objects, the incident happened on the same day Iran fired a barrage of drones and missiles at Gulf States in retaliation for US and Israeli strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
A strike, if confirmed, on the AWS facility in the UAE will mark the first time a major US tech company’s data center has been knocked offline by military action. It could also raise questions around Big Tech’s pace of expansion in the region.
US tech giants have been positioning the UAE as a regional hub for artificial intelligence computing needed to power services such as ChatGPT. Microsoft said in November it plans to bring its total investment in the UAE to $15 billion by the end of 2029 and will use Nvidia chips for its data centers there.
“In previous conflicts, regional adversaries such as Iran and its proxies targeted pipelines, refineries, and oil fields in Gulf partner states. In the compute era, these actors could also target data centers, energy infrastructure supporting compute, and fiber chokepoints,” Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies said last week.
Microsoft as well as Google and Oracle — both of which also operate facilities in the UAE — did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
AWS said a full recovery from the issues was expected to “be many hours away” for both UAE and Bahrain.
The outage had disrupted a dozen core cloud services and the company advised customers to back up critical data and shift operations to servers in unaffected AWS regions.
