The Times is reporting that Bin Laden’s former spokesperson, Adel Abdel Bary, is about to be released from the United States, after serving 21 years in jail after being convicted for his part in the terror attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. 224 people were killed in these attacks and over 5,000 people were injured in the 1998 bombings that shook East Africa and spiralled it into becoming a theatre of operations for Islamist terrorists in the region.

Bary’s son, Abdel-Majed Abdel, was recently arrested in Spain after travelling to Syria to fight for the so-called Islamic State, and posing with the severed head of a soldier in the Assad regime. Abdel was detained with two other men in Almeria and Spanish police subsequently tweeted out that he was “one of Europe’s most wanted Daesh foreign terrorist fighters”.

Así detuvimos en #Almería a uno de los Foreign Terrorist Fighters de DAESH más buscados de #Europa. De nacionalidad egipcia, habría entrado ilegalmente en España y se ocultaba en un piso de alquiler. También se arrestó a otras dos personas que lo acompañaban pic.twitter.com/14f2v2brEg

— Policía Nacional (@policia) April 21, 2020

Bary’s imminent release and return means that he cannot be placed under Terrorist Prevention and Investigation Measures (TPIMs) and he is being released on compassionate grounds, given that he is 60 years of age, suffers from asthma and is overweight.

Bary sought and was granted asylum in 1990 after he claimed that he was tortured by the Mubarak regime at the time. Faith Matters has long stated that the root of the Islamist extremist problem that has blighted our nation came about because there was little understanding of Islamist extremist activists, groups and networks in the late 1980’s and 1990’s. This meant that many Islamist extremist leaders who were being persecuted by regimes such as those of Mubarak and Gaddafi, entered into the U.K. They entered like wolves into a sheep pen, further poisoning the minds of many young men and turning them against their own country.

Such individuals have fanned the flames of extremism in our country and internationally and whilst Bary has served his sentence in the US, we must ensure that his activities are monitored once he enters the U.K.

However, public patience with individuals convicted of terrorist related offences is running out and many will be asking why we cannot push the US to ensure that he serves out his full sentence. Sadly, the reality is that such an argument will go nowhere as US law authorities have deemed him eligible for release.

It therefore falls upon the Home Secretary to demonstrate the measures that the Home Office will put in place for Bary and future releases like his. Whilst he may have served out the majority of his 25 year sentence, there is no way that this former spokesperson for the one time most wanted terrorist in the world, can lead a life without observation from our security services. It is people like Bary who created the monster of Islamist extremism. That stain remains with them forever, even when they look like a grandad with little desire to harm anyone.

Americans have marked a Memorial Day like no other as the coronavirus pandemic forced communities to honour the nation’s military dead with smaller, more subdued ceremonies.

On the weekend that marks the unofficial start of summer, US authorities warned beach-goers to heed social distancing rules to avoid a resurgence of the disease.

Covid-19 has infected 5.4 million people worldwide and killed more than 345,000, including nearly 100,000 Americans, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

Memorial Day commemorations were cancelled or toned down across the country.

Veterans, along with nursing home residents, have made up a significant portion of those who died in the US outbreak.

The 37,000 American flags traditionally placed on the Boston Common to honour Massachusetts military members who died in service were replaced with just 1,000 flags to limit volunteers and onlookers.

Fallen military members were honoured in New York City with car convoys and small ceremonies this year rather than parades to conform with lockdown restrictions.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden made his first in-person appearance in more than two months by laying a wreath at a veterans park near his Delaware home.

He wore a face mask as he and his wife bowed their heads in silence. He saluted and could be heard saying: “Never forget.”

Mr Biden told reporters: “I feel great to be out here.””

He also yelled to a group standing nearby: “Thank you for your service.”

After two days of playing golf, US president Donald Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery.

Presidents typically lay a wreath and deliver a speech at the hallowed burial ground in Virginia but because of the pandemic, which is expected to claim its 100,000th American victim this week, the ceremony looked different this year.

Many attendees arrived wearing masks but removed them for the outdoor ceremony in front of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

He approached a wreath already in place, touching it and giving a salute.

Mr Trump later spoke at Baltimore’s historic Fort McHenry, where he noted tens of thousands of service members and national guard personnel are currently “on the front lines of our war against this terrible virus”.

He also said: “Together we will vanquish the virus and America will rise from this crisis to new and even greater heights.

“No obstacle, no challenge and no threat is a match for the sheer determination of the American people.”

Tens of thousands of Americans still headed to beaches and parks, relieved to shake off some pandemic restrictions.

Dr Deborah Birx, co-ordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, said she was “very concerned” about scenes of people crowding together.

A woman has died and three other people are in hospital after a shooting at a synagogue outside San Diego, California.

County sheriff William Gore said a white man opened fire on worshippers at Chabad of Poway with an AR-type assault weapon.

San Diego Police chief David Nisleit said the 19-year-old suspect called police to report the shooting, and was subsequently arrested by a California Highway Patrol officer.

Mr Nisleit said the suspect got out of his car with his hands up and was taken into custody without incident.

Mr Gore confirmed a woman died from her injuries, while a girl and two men are in hospital in a stable condition.

He said an off-duty Border Patrol agent believed to be inside the synagogue at the time shot at the suspect as he fled. The sheriff said the agent did not hit him, but struck his car.

US president Donald Trump offered his “deepest sympathies to the families of those affected”.

At the White House, Mr Trump said that the shooting “looked like a hate crime” and called it “hard to believe”.

He spoke from the South Lawn before flying to a rally in Wisconsin.

Mr Gore said he had no details on motive.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday war was unlikely but called on Iran’s armed forces to boost their defence capacities, according to his official website, as the country faces increased tension with the United States.

On Saturday, Iran announced plans to boost its ballistic and cruise missile capacity and acquire modern fighter planes and submarines to boost its defences following the U.S. pullout from Tehran’s nuclear agreement with world powers.

“Ayatollah Khamenei emphasised that based on political calculations there is no likelihood of a military war but added that the armed forces must be vigilant … and raise their personnel and equipment capacities,” the website quoted Khamenei as telling commanders of Iran’s air defence forces.

“The Supreme Leader said … the air defence units were a very sensitive part of the armed forces and on the front line of confronting the enemy, and emphasized the need to increase their readiness and capabilities,” the website said in its report on the gathering, which was held to mark Iran’s Air Defence Day.

Saturday’s news of the military development plans came a day after Iran dismissed a French call for negotiations on Tehran’s future nuclear plans, its ballistic missile arsenal and its role in wars in Syria and Yemen.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said last month the Islamic Republic’s military prowess was what deterred Washington from attacking it.

Separately, a senior Iranian diplomat met visiting UK Junior Foreign Minister Alistair Burt and urged swift European action on a planned package of economic measures to offset the U.S. pullout from the accord and the reimpositions of sanctions by Washington, the state news agency IRNA reported.

“The imposition of (U.S.) sanctions and pressures and the lack of rapid action by Europe to fulfil their commitments will have serious consequences,” Kamal Kharrazi, a former foreign minister who heads a top foreign policy council, told Burt, IRNA reported.

Iranian officials have said they would decide whether to quit the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers after studying the European package of economic measures that could help offset U.S. sanctions.

“European countries have not been able yet to take necessary measures to secure Iran’s interests under the nuclear agreement,” Kharrazi said.

“(Burt) said Britain’s position is different from that of the United States and we are looking for a European mechanism to make the nuclear accord successful,” IRNA reported.

In a meeting with senior parliamentarian Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, Burt referred to the case of a British-Iranian dual national detained in Iran, IRNA reported.

“I thank Iran for its humanitarian act to grant Nazanin Zaghari furlough and her meeting with her family, and we hope that this approach will continue until the release and the pardon of such people,” Burt said, according to IRNA.

Britain is seeking the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a project manager with the Thomson Reuters Foundation. She was arrested in April 2016 at Tehran airport as she was heading back to Britain with her daughter, now aged four, after a family visit. She was released for three days last month.

Burt, on the first visit by a British minister since U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal, earlier met Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Saturday the talks with Burt had involved “access to banking resources and the sale of oil”.

Iran has been seeking commitment from European signatories of the nuclear deal that it will be able to access the Western banking system and continue to sell oil despite U.S. sanctions.

In a statement before his visit, Burt said: “As long as Iran meets its commitments under the deal, we remain committed to it as we believe it is the best way to ensure a safe, secure future for the region.”

A Vietnamese court found two Vietnamese-Americans guilty of terrorism on Wednesday and sentenced them to 14 years in prison for masterminding a series of bomb plots earlier this year, a court official told Reuters.

James Nguyen and Angel Phan were convicted, along with 10 accomplices who received short jail terms, after a two day trial. All defendants had been charged with “attempting to overthrow the state”.

Phan and Nguyen had been accused of organising at least three attacks, including the attempted bombing of Vietnam’s largest international airport in Ho Chi Minh City last April, and the successful bombing of a police station in June this year.

“The remaining 10 defendants in the same trial received prison terms of between five and 11 years,” an official at the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court told Reuters by phone.

According to state media, Phan and Nguyen were acting on behalf of the “Provisional Government of Vietnam”, a California-based organisation run by Vietnamese-Americans still loyal to the now defunct state of South Vietnam.

The U.S. organisation, which was listed as a “terrorist” group by Hanoi in January this year, dispatched Phan and Nguyen to Vietnam in February 2017 to carry out attacks on Vietnamese national holidays, the Ministry of Public Security said in a statement on its website.

Phan and Nguyen ran a network of underground operatives in Vietnam, some of whom were given titles in a shadow government such as “governor of Saigon”, or “commander of national defence guards,” the Ministry of Public Security said on Wednesday.

The pair assigned “counter-revolutionary” missions to the group’s members in Vietnam, the ministry said, including a plan to broadcast anti-government propaganda from local radio stations, organise protests, and “insult the image” of former president Ho Chi Minh.

Phan and Nguyen will be deported after serving their jail term, Voice of Vietnam radio reported.

In June, a court in Ho Chi Minh City upheld prison sentences against 15 members of the group it said were guilty of planting bombs in the international terminal of Tan Son Nhat airport in April last year.

Last month, police said it had arrested seven people from the group over the bombing of a Ho Chi Minh City police station.

The incident, in which two small explosive devices were detonated, injured three people in what police said was a “terrorist case against the people’s government”.

A police warehouse, where confiscated vehicles, mostly motorbikes, were stored, was also blown up.

The Provisional Government of Vietnam did not respond to a request for comment made via its website.

In a statement, the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi said it had been providing consular services for James Nguyen.

“We will continue to monitor Mr. Nguyen’s welfare, advocate for him, and provide consular services until his release,” spokesman Pope Thrower said in the statement, which did not mention Angel Phan or address the terrorism charges.

The president of Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic has accused the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo of using its development agency to interfere in the Balkan country’s election process, a charge dismissed by the embassy as a “wild” conspiracy theory.

Milorad Dodik said the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was implementing its aid programme through non-government organisations to conceal what he said was its real agenda of countering Russian influence in the region.

“Aiming to directly interfere in internal affairs of the Republika Srpska and Bosnia, USAID … tries to avoid all institutions and to grant funds under cover of the alleged fight against crime and corruption,” Dodik said.

Dodik, a critic of the West who favours closer ties with Russia, accused the central Bosnian government of conspiring with USAID in the matter and said that NGOs in the Serb Republic which receive USAID funding would be investigated.

Bosnia is divided into a Serb Republic and an entity for its Muslim Bosniak and Croat populations, which are linked via a weak central government.

The U.S. Embassy dismissed Dodik’s accusations.

“Once again, the assistance of the people of the United States is being used to support wild conspiracy theories in the interest of election campaigning in Bosnia,” it said in a statement.

The embassy said it was still negotiating with the Bosnian central government programmes worth a total $8 million to help combat graft, and it accused Dodik of trying to mislead the public and intimidate USAID partners.

Bosnia’s Prime Minister Denis Zvizdic also dismissed Dodik’s allegations, saying the programmes accepted by the Council of Ministers were only at an initial stage and could not influence the election process.

Dodik, who has been blacklisted by the United States for pushing for an illegal referendum on an illegal holiday, has often accused Western governments of being biased against Serbs.

Political analysts said Dodik’s rhetoric showed he had begun early campaigning for Bosnia’s parliamentary and presidential elections on Oct. 7. He plans to run for the Serbs’ seat in Bosnia’s tripartite inter-ethnic presidency.

Last month, Dodik also accused Britain of sending intelligence specialists to Bosnia to meddle in the election campaign. Britain said he was “inventing fake threats” as part of his election campaigning.

The U.N. rights chief said on Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump bears “a heavy responsibility” for how the media is portrayed and that his remarks could have a knock-on effect that could hurt journalists in other countries.

U.S. newspapers across the country ran editorials last Thursday defending freedom of the press in response to President Donald Trump calling some media organizations enemies of the American people.

“To label the press in this way is very worrisome,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said in a wide-ranging interview days before his four-year term ends.

“The President should be aware that a heavy responsibility lies on his shoulders when it comes to the way in which the media is being portrayed,” Zeid said, speaking to Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France Presse in his Geneva office.

“Because it also has a demonstration effect, other leaders in authoritarian settings will do same thing. We’ve seen now how they mimic President Trump and so what could already be a difficult situation in other countries becomes even more difficult for the press to operate and for journalists to uncover stories and for lawyers to do their work and for human rights defenders to do their work,” he added.

Trump’s comments reflect a view held by many conservatives that many media outlets distort, make up or omit facts because of a bias against them. The Republican president has said he supports the principle of press freedom, but has described much of what the media publishes as “fake news”.

VETOES, CRISES

Zeid has been outspoken about human rights violations, earning rebukes from the United States and its ally Israel, as well as China, Myanmar, Hungary, Syria, and his native Jordan.

On Monday, he criticised world powers in the U.N. Security Council – singling out the United States, Russia and China – for casting vetoes and preventing resolution of crises or their being referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

“And I think that has to change, in the end the organisation can collapse at great cost to the international community and to international peace and security,” Zeid warned.

“The threats to the system altogether are very real.”

On China, he called for access to the far western region of Xinjiang following reports by activists and independent U.N. rights monitors this month about mass detention of Muslim Uighurs.

China has rejected allegations raised by the U.N. panel that 1 million Uighurs may be held in internment camps in the restive region, but said that some people underwent re-education after being deceived by extremists.

“As with all countries, the request is let us in or else we will assume the absolute worst,” Zeid told Reuters.

The U.S. ambassador joined a ceremony in Nairobi on Tuesday to commemorate 20 years since truck bombs hit the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 258 people and marking the start of al Qaeda’s global campaign of violence.

Some 200 Kenyans and Americans, many of them survivors of the attack, gathered at Nairobi’s August 7th Memorial Park to pray and remember the victims.

“We forgive those who hurt us, but we may not forget. Let’s pray for them to change their mind so that we can live happily together,” said Thaddeus Mutiiria Nyaga, whose son, Emmanuel, was killed on Aug. 7. His name was read out along with those of the other victims, as candles were lit during the ceremony.

The blasts killed 12 Americans, and wounded several thousand people in what was al Qaeda’s first big attack in a campaign by the Islamist militants.

Three years later, the group would conduct its most notorious attack, flying passenger planes into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing some 3,000 people.

“The terrorists really sought to divide us. They sought to divide Kenyans and Americans. They sought to attack civilization. And they failed,” U.S. Ambassador Robert Godec said at the ceremony.

Kenya’s director of counter-terrorism, Martin Kimani, said terrorism remained a threat, “but our country has taken giant strides to prepare better to be more ready, and part of that readiness is our cooperation with our friends”.

In 2013, gunmen from the Somali militant group al-Shabaab, an al Qaeda affiliate, killed at least 67 people inside a shopping mall and held out for four days as security forces laid siege to the complex.

Kenyan troops are fighting in neighbouring Somalia against al-Shabaab as part of an African Union peacekeeping force that has been deployed there for more than a decade.

Mourner Ali Mwadama said militants who say they kill in the name of religion do not represent Islam or any faith.

“We can’t call them Muslims,” he said. “If you are a Muslim you must follow the rules of Allah.”

Every few weeks, Susan Bro walks down 4th Street in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, until she gets to a brick wall covered in chalked messages like “Love over hate” and “Gone but not forgotten.”

“I come just to absorb the energy of the place,” Bro, 61, said on Tuesday as she stood on the block now named for her daughter, Heather Heyer, who was killed a year ago while marching against a white supremacist rally.

Since August 12, 2017, when James Fields rammed his car into counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heyer and injuring several others, Bro has channelled her rage and grief into spreading the same message that drew her daughter downtown that day.

Bro said she made a promise to her daughter at her funeral, when she saw her bruised, broken body for the first time and broke down in tears.

“I held her hand and said, ‘I’m going to make this count.'”

Heyer’s death capped a day of clashes after hundreds of white supremacists, neo-Nazis and others descended upon the city, drawing national attention to the “alt right” movement that had grown bolder since President Donald Trump’s election.

Trump faced intense criticism after the protests when he seemed to equate the white nationalists with the counter-protesters, saying there were “very fine people on both sides.”

Bro said she chose not to return several phone calls from the White House after learning of the president’s remarks.

As the city prepares for the first anniversary of the so-called “Unite the Right” rally, Bro is readying herself for another difficult milestone in a year full of painful moments without Heather.

“The ‘firsts’ are always hardest,” she said, her voice cracking. “I got through the others: Mother’s Day, her birthday, Christmas. This will be the last one.”

Bro said she would bring flowers to Heather Heyer Way on August 12 before speaking at an event to mark the anniversary.

Law enforcement agencies have made extensive plans to combat any potential violence, though the leader of last year’s gathering, local white nationalist Jason Kessler, failed to secure a permit for a sequel this year. Instead, he has obtained a permit to hold a rally in Washington outside the White House.

Before last summer, Bro, a former elementary schoolteacher, led a relatively quiet life, doing secretarial work and living in a modest trailer home about 30 minutes north of Charlottesville.

At Heyer’s memorial service, which drew nearly 2,000 mourners and was broadcast live on large screens, Bro said the national response to the tragedy was “just the beginning of Heather’s legacy.”

“They tried to kill my child to shut her up. Well guess what? You just magnified her,” she said, drawing a standing ovation.

Within weeks of Heyer’s death, Bro created the Heather Heyer Foundation, in part to install a formal and legal structure to handle the hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds that poured in from sympathizers around the country.

Bro runs the foundation from her home and from an office at a Charlottesville law firm, filled with tributes to Heyer that she has received over the last year: a portrait painted by an artist, a humanitarian award given posthumously by the Muhammad Ali Center, notes written by Heyer’s friends at her memorial service.

The foundation has organised a scholarship programme and is planning to launch a social justice youth programme.

Bro found herself making appearances on Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show and at MTV’s Video Music Awards. She acknowledged that the intense media attention has caused resentment among some activists in Charlottesville who feel the focus on Heyer, a white woman, has distracted from the racial issues at the core of the clashes.

It has been a bit of a balancing act, she said, to amplify Heyer’s message without making it seem as though her daughter was the only victim who mattered. She noted that violence against black people often does not generate the same level of interest and warned against the “white-centred” narrative that portrayed Heyer as a leader rather than simply one of many people who decided to march.

“The issues have not changed,” Bro said. “We still have police shootings, over-policing, a lack of affordable housing, the prison pipeline.”

A year after burying her daughter, Bro reflected on the activism that brought Heyer to the protests.

“The point of Heather’s death is that we have a responsibility to rise up to address that hate,” Bro said. “Don’t sit by and wring your hands.”

Facebook Inc. said on Tuesday it had identified a new coordinated political influence campaign to mislead its users and sow dissension among voters ahead of November’s U.S. congressional elections.

It said it had removed 32 pages and accounts from Facebook and Instagram, part of an effort to combat foreign meddling in U.S. elections.

The company stopped short of identifying the source of the misinformation. But members of Congress who had been briefed by Facebook on the matter said the methodology of the influence campaign suggested Russian involvement.

“I can say I think with pretty high confidence I think this is Russian-related,” Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters at the U.S. Capitol.

Two U.S. intelligence officials told Reuters there was not sufficient evidence to conclude that Russia was behind the Facebook campaign, but one noted that “the similarities, aims and methodology relative to the 2016 Russian campaign are quite striking.”

A Russian propaganda arm tried to tamper in the 2016 U.S. election by posting and buying ads on Facebook, according to the company and U.S. intelligence agencies. In February, the U.S. Justice Department indicted 13 Russian nationals, and the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, for interfering in the 2016 U.S. election.

Moscow has denied involvement.

Facebook has been on the defensive about influence activity on its site and concerns over user privacy tied to long-standing agreements with developers that allowed them access to private user data.

‘ARMS RACE’

The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensics Research Lab, which was shown the suspended pages ahead of the takedown, said they showed similarities in language and approach to previously fake accounts from the Internet Research Agency, which is known as the “troll factory” because it stirs up public opinion on social media sites.

The lab cited “consistent mistranslation, as well as an overwhelming focus on polarizing issues at the top of any given news cycle.” It said, for example, the posts on the year-old, feminist Resisters page “took a liberal or left-wing stance on issues around gender, race, immigration, and human rights.” Other pages promoted racial pride among minority groups.

The group said the Resisters page was alarming because it was pushing for confrontation at multiple protests, including against “Unite the Right 2,” with a potential for violence.

A man who identified himself as an administrator of Resisters, Washington activist Brendan Orsinger, said on a video call with Reuters that he had been invited to help operate the page by someone he knew only through Facebook messages.

“I definitely had concerns, because people don’t usually invite me to accounts unless they know me,” Orsinger said. “But at the same time, this was an account we could use.”

He said that more than a dozen legitimate activist groups were still supporting the counter-rally and would now have to work harder to reconnect with people who had been following it through the Resisters page.

Orsinger said he was not yet sure that the account that had involved him was Russian, but that if it was, he was concerned about he and fellow activists being infiltrated and influenced.

Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, said on a call with reporters that the attempts to manipulate public opinion would likely become more sophisticated to evade Facebook’s scrutiny, calling it an “arms race.”

The White House said the administration was supportive of Facebook’s actions.

“We applaud efforts by our private-sector partners to combat an array of threats that occur in cyberspace, including malign influence,” said Garrett Marquis, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

U.S. President Donald Trump has come under fire for discounting the threat of interference in the congressional elections.

During his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki earlier this month, Trump appeared to state that he believed Russia was no longer trying to influence the U.S. election process.

Trump later amended that, saying he was “very concerned” about Russian interference in the election. On Friday, Trump held a meeting with his national security advisers on election security.

DIVISIVE ISSUES

Facebook identified influence activity around at least two issues, including the counter-protest to the Unite the Right 2 rally set next week in Washington. The other was the #AbolishICE social media campaign aimed at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

In an online post, Facebook said it was disclosing the influence effort now in part because of the rally. A previous event last year in Charlottesville, Virginia, led to violence by white supremacists.

“This kind of behavior is not allowed on Facebook because we don’t want people or organizations creating networks of accounts to mislead others about who they are, or what they’re doing,” the company said.

More than 290,000 accounts followed at least one of the pages and about $11,000 had been spent on about 150 ads, Facebook said. The pages had created about 30 events since May 2017.

Facebook officials on a call with reporters said one known account from Russia’s Internet Research Agency was a co-administrator of one of the fake pages for seven minutes, but the company did not believe that was enough evidence to attribute the campaign to the Russian government.

The company previously said 126 million Americans may have seen Russian-backed political content on Facebook over a two-year period, and that 16 million may have been exposed to Russian information on the Instagram photo-sharing app.

Over the past several months, the company has taken steps meant to reassure U.S. and European lawmakers that further regulation is unnecessary. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg says the company has 20,000 people working to police and protect the site.