International News Roundup: Pornhub Restricts UK Access, Bangladesh Sentences Former PM, and More
In a week filled with international developments, several key stories emerged, ranging from online content restrictions to political corruption and technological concerns.
Pornhub began restricting access for users in the United Kingdom on February 2, 2026, a move prompted by the impending implementation of the Online Safety Act in July 2025, BBC Technology reported. The law mandates robust age verification measures for adult content websites. Aylo, Pornhub's parent company, claimed the law has driven users to sites not following the law and increased "exposure to..." (the sentence was incomplete in the original source). Critics of the Online Safety Act argue that it can be easily circumvented through the use of virtual private networks (VPNs), which mask a user's location.
Meanwhile, in Bangladesh, former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her niece, Labour MP Tulip Siddiq, were sentenced to jail in a corruption probe, according to Sky News. The country's corruption watchdog alleged that Hasina colluded with government officials to illegally secure six plots for herself and her family in a development near Dhaka. Hasina received a 10-year jail sentence, while Siddiq was sentenced to four years, along with another niece, Azmi. Both women condemned the verdicts, with Hasina branding the special tribunal that tried her "a kangaroo court."
In the Middle East, Israel agreed to a limited reopening of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt, The Guardian reported. The crossing, Gaza's only one not shared with Israel, had been under Israeli control since May 2024. The reopening allowed a limited number of people on foot to cross, as diplomatic efforts to stabilize the conflict continued. Tens of thousands of ill and wounded Palestinians awaited evacuation.
On the technology front, Notepad++ developer Don Ho confirmed that hackers, likely associated with the Chinese government, hijacked the software's update mechanism to deliver malicious updates to users between June and December 2025, TechCrunch reported. The highly selective targeting suggested a specific motive behind the cyberattack. The developer did not disclose the number of users targeted or compromised. Notepad++ is a long-running open-source project with a large user base.
Also in the tech world, a coalition of nonprofits urged the U.S. government to immediately suspend the deployment of Grok, the chatbot developed by Elon Musk's xAI, in federal agencies, including the Department of Defense, TechCrunch reported. The open letter cited concerns about Grok generating nonconsensual sexual content, including turning photos of real women and children into sexualized images. According to some reports, Grok generated thousands of nonconsensual explicit images every hour, which were then disseminated at scale on X, Musk's social media platform. The coalition argued that deploying an AI product with system-level flaws that enable the creation and dissemination of such content is deeply concerning.
Discussion
AI Experts & Community
Be the first to comment