In a bid to raise awareness on suicide prevention in India, Twitter India on Monday announced a partnership with non-profit organisation White Swan Foundation in which, the company will provide them with #adsforgood grants to help them reach more people. Twitter, in partnership with the International Association for Suicide Prevention, also launched a special emoji for the World Suicide Prevention Day, that was observed on September 10, globally including in India. “Through our partnerships with International Association for Suicide Prevention and White Swan Foundation, we aim to create greater awareness around suicide and suicide prevention, connect with people and address mental health…
Author: Loknath Das
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The Nasdaq Composite ran 1.2% lower on Wednesday despite the move slightly higher that equity markets witnessed for the blue chip Dow Jones Industrial Average. What gives? Rotation. Something along the lines of a flash rotation out of Technology, and into industry groups that usually run into trouble over trade took place yesterday. Along with traditionally defensive sectors such as Utilities, Staples and Telecom, investment dollars also flew into Industrials and Materials. The catalyst seemed to be the appearances made before the U.S. Congress by Twitter (TWTR – Get Report) CEO Jack Dorsey, and Facebook (FB – Get Report) CEO Sheryl Sandberg. Alphabet (GOOGL – Get Report) did…
Early in the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee’s hearing on Wednesday about foreign meddling on digital platforms, Senator Richard Burr asked executives from Facebook and Twitter to define the phrase “social media.” It was a softball question that allowed the corporate pariahs of our era to recall the simpler times when they effectively sold themselves as forces for good. “Social media enables you to share what you want to share when you want to share it without asking permission from anyone,” Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said. “We believe that the people use Twitter as they would a public square,…
Finnish education is simple. No league tables, no uniforms and some of the shortest school days in Europe. Yet the country has a claim to A*s across the board, consistently topping world rankings. In the UK, standardised tests are today’s hot topic – an increasingly controversial pillar of all our school years. In Finland, such a thing is almost non-existent, with the only state-regulated assessment coming in the form of one exam which can determine a pupil’s entry to university. Otherwise, testing is down to a teacher’s prerogative. When data is collected by the regulating body, it’s with improving the service…
Lots of excellent ideas for education’s future, from Melissa Benn’s “abolition of national tests in years 2 and 6”, and a “less prescriptive national curriculum”, as related in Peter Wilby’s review of Benn’s book Life Lessons (Clarion call loud enough to rally even the weariest, 4 September) to “abolishing the VAT exemption on private school fees” as suggested by Robert Verkaik (‘Let teachers sack their boss’: What else should be in a National Education Service?, 4 September), but no one had an answer to the obvious question. There is a recruitment problem, and teachers are leaving the profession in droves,…
Every year, thousands of students cross the thresholds laid by our educational system, armed with the best possible resources and guidance, to score the most in examinations that supposedly test their learning for the year. Toppers receive laurels for their high percentages, teachers are applauded, and schools proudly declare their standing, as the rest applaud and gape at the seemingly unachievable, exceptional performances. The average students are pushed to pace up, while parents and schools leave no stone unturned, to ensure children receive the best of education. Laptops replace notebooks, digital media makes its way into classrooms, and typical benches…
Europe’s biggest news agencies accused Google and Facebook of “plundering” news for free on Tuesday in a joint statement that called on the Internet giants to share more of their revenues with the media. In a column signed by the CEOs of around 20 agencies including France’s Agence France-Presse, Britain’s Press Association and Germany’s Deutsche Presse-Agentur they called on the European Parliament to update copyright law in the EU to help address a “grotesque imbalance”. “The Internet giants’ plundering of the news media’s content and of their advertising revenue poses a threat both to consumers and to democracy,” the column said. European Parliament lawmakers…
As Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey gets ready to testify before the US Congress on September 5, reports have surfaced that he is personally weighing in on high-profile decisions to ban controversial accounts, frustrating some employees. According to a report in Wall Street Journal on Monday, Dorsey overruled a decision by his staff to ban the right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. He also reportedly “instructed his employees to let alt-right provocateur Richard Spencer keep one of his Twitter accounts after the trust and safety team kicked him off the platform in 2016”. Twitter’s Chief Legal Officer Vijaya Gadde, however, disputed the report. “Any suggestion that Jack made…
Facebook on Monday said a technical problem prevented some users from accessing and posting on the social network as well as messaging app WhatsApp and Instagram, and it had mostly fixed the issue. “Earlier today, a networking issue caused some people to have trouble accessing or posting to various Facebook services. We quickly investigated and started restoring access, and we have nearly fixed the issue for everyone. We’re sorry for the inconvenience,” Facebook spokesman Jay Nancarrow said. Most affected users experienced problems for less than 90 minutes and the problem was not specific to a particular region. Some users had read-only access while others…
The first prediction of the impact of Uganda’s tax on social media and mobile money is in—and it’s grim. In early July, the East African nation introduced a tax on users accessing 60 websites and social media apps from their phones, including WhatsApp, Twitter, and Facebook. The levy is enforced by telecom companies, which deduct a daily or weekly fee whenever a user accesses the targeted apps. The government also increased excise duty fees on mobile money transactions from 10% to 15%. These measures, it said, would reduce capital flight and improve the country’s tax-to-GDP ratio. Critics contend the levy puts an undue burden on the poor and is aimed at…