Facebook has changed a lot since it first went online, but at least one thing has remained pretty much immovable: The site requires users to use their “real” names, and not a pseudonym, on the social network. The “real name” policy is designed to encourage accountability, but it’s come under fire in recent years from users who feel Facebook hasn’t done nearly enough to address its biggest unintended consequences. On Tuesday, Facebook announced that it was testing two changes to its “real” name reporting and verification process, designed to make sure that Facebook’s name policy “works for everyone, especially for…
Author: Richard
As Christmas draws nearer, you might have seen posts on Facebook or other social networks about gift exchanges and Secret Santas. That’s a fun way to get some gifts and potentially even make better friends with people you might not know that well. But you might have also seen posts for a “secret sister gift exchange” doing the rounds, and promising you that you need to buy only one gift, and you will receive 36 in return. Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, that’s because it is – this is just another pyramid scheme, but for gifts, instead…
Facebook has announced that it will be shuttering its Creative Labs division, which made apps like Slingshot, Rooms, and Riff. The company besides curtailing the two-year old initiative has also removed the three apps from Google Play and the App Store. According to Facebook, most of the features from Slingshot, Rooms, and Riff were already been integrated in Facebook app and Messenger. “Since their launches, we’ve incorporated elements of Slingshot, Riff, and Rooms into the Facebook for iOS and Android apps,” said the company spokesperson to The Verge. “We haven’t updated these apps in some time and we’ve decided to…
Facebook has lifted a ban that blocked material from Tsu.co, a small rival challenging the world’s largest social network’s financial dependence on free content shared by its 1.5 billion users. The reversal comes a month after The Associated Press published a story airing concerns that Facebook might be abusing its power to thwart competition and stifle the concept advanced by Tsu that people should be paid for the stories and images that they post on social networks. “We won in the court of public opinion,” Tsu CEO Sebastian Sobczak said Tuesday. “When you have something new and novel in the…
Apple was the first to add over 150 new emoji characters with full support for Unicode 7.0 and 8.0 emojis with its iOS 9.1 update. This was soon followed by Google which recently started rolling outAndroid 6.0.1 update for its devices adding new emoji characters. Now, Twitter has quietly added the new emojis with full support for Unicode 7.0 and 8.0. First reportedby Emojipedia, Twitter will now show new emoji characters including the ones with skin tones. Emojipedia also notes that Twitter, unlike other services, supported limited emoji characters on its desktop site as well as TweetDeck, the Twitter client…
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wants to protect the rights of Muslims, saying they should not fear being “persecuted for the actions of others.” Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post that the Muslim community should not face discrimination following attacks in Paris and elsewhere linked to extremists. His comments appeared aimed at countering the call by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to ban Muslims from entering the United States. “After the Paris attacks and hate this week, I can only imagine the fear Muslims feel that they will be persecuted for the actions of others,” he wrote. “As a Jew, my…
+ A Facebook update by a councillor of Tarangambadi town panchayat has helped identify the body of aChennai flood victim, which was washed ashore at Tarangambadi coast in the district, some 300 km from Chennai. Coastal security group police of Tarangambadi said the body was washed ashore on December 6 in a highly mutilated condition. (Also see: Chennai Received More Rainfall on December 1 Than Any Day Since 1901: Nasa) The body contained three tattoo marks – one each on the chest, right shoulder and right hand. It was sent for post-mortem at the nearby Porayar Government Hospital. M Arunkumar,…
Facebook on Thursday announced that it is testing “several changes” to News Feed functionality that will become apparent when the app detects slow Internet connectivity – the biggest of which, is offline comment support. The company is also aiming to more “efficiently” show News Feed posts when users are on slow network connections. “These changes will help anyone who is on a poor Internet connection – even those whose network connectivity is generally good but who have intermittent connections in places like subways and tunnels, or at large events,” mentioned the company blog post. The changes will allow users to…
Bangladesh on Thursday lifted a ban on Facebook, three weeks after it was imposed for security reasons in the tense country, but mobile messaging apps remained barred, the telecoms minister said. The government ordered Facebook, WhatsApp and Viber blocked last month after two opposition leaders lost their appeals against the death penalty for war crimes committed during the 1971 independence conflict. The pair were hanged days later, hiking fears of opposition unrest in a country already reeling from deadly attacks by suspected Islamist militants. Telecoms minister Tarana Halim said although Facebook could now be accessed, bans on WhatsApp and Viber…
Twitter Inc said it was testing a feature to show advertisements to people who read tweets without logging in, as it tries to make good on its long-time ambition to monetize non-active users. The company said the feature will help it cash in on an additional half a billion people each month, pushing its shares up as much as 7.8 percent to $26.21 on Thursday – their biggest percentage gain in two months. The promoted tweets and videos will be available on Twitter’s desktop website, particularly on people’s profile pages and “tweet detail” pages that highlight specific tweets. The move…