Dispatches from the ground: August 28

Here are this week's biggest stories in tech from the regions that we cover. For more exclusive content, sign up for Rest of World's weekly global newsletter.

Above image via Building a food delivery app in the internet shutdown capital of the world

Africa

Amid a tough year for Africa’s B2B e-commerce startups, two of the biggest players in the sector have merged their operations. Today, Kenya’s Wasoko and Egypt’s MaxAB officially completed their merger, which started in 2023 and reportedly hit some speed bumps on the way. The two companies have described the deal as “the largest merger in African e-commerce.” The merged entity will operate across Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Egypt, and Morocco and includes 450,000 B2B informal retailers, the largest such network in Africa. —? dámiláre dòsùnmú from Lagos

China

Tencent-backed video game Black Myth: Wukong has become a worldwide blockbuster — topping charts with 3 million people playing at its peak on the Steam platform. Based on the classic Chinese epic Journey to the West, featuring the supernaturally gifted “Monkey King,” the game has become so popular that it has significantly boosted sales for gaming consoles and graphic cards. This is a landmark event, even though the launch has been mired in controversy over reports of the developer’s efforts to censor livestreamers. While China has a massive domestic gaming industry, the international success of Monkey King is “on par with an Avengers film,” Rest of World deputy editor Ravi Hiranand told Al Jazeera. —? Joanna Chiu from Vancouver

Latin America

Journalists, independent watchdogs, and fact-checkers in Latin America are mourning last month’s closure of CrowdTangle, Meta’s leading transparency tool. Users of CrowdTangle could access Meta’s data and identify sources of misinformation through it — a key feature during electoral processes. In Argentina, where far-right president Javier Milei has spread disinformation online to justify his policies, fact-checkers are concerned about the consequences of the closure. In Brazil, where elections will be held in October, journalists are worried that Meta’s Content Library, CrowdTangle’s substitute tool, bans access to all commercial media outlets. —? Daniela Dib from Nosara, Costa Rica

South Asia

Global video streaming companies and leading telecoms in India are at loggerheads. This week, the Asia Internet Coalition, an industry body that represents Amazon, Apple, Google, Netflix, and Spotify, pushed back on Indian telecoms’ request for higher regulation of streaming services. Indian telecom giants Reliance Jio, Vodafone Idea, and Bharti Airtel accused video streaming services of “free riding” over their networks. But the coalition said streaming platforms contribute to the revenues generated by telecom companies. In addition, the coalition highlighted that there are already several regulations that streaming platforms have to follow in India, including content takedowns, incident reporting, and user complaint handlers.?—? Ananya Bhattacharya from Mumbai

Southeast Asia

Indonesia has banned search engine DuckDuckGo, shut down free VPN services, and set limits on mobile credit transfers as it cracks down on online gambling and pornography. The country bans the sharing of content deemed obscene and also blocks Reddit and Vimeo. Authorities recently threatened to also ban X over concerns about pornography. The government has introduced a new broadcast bill that bans LGBTQIA content and other “negative” material online, potentially hurting content creators. —? Rina Chandran from Bangkok