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…
Author: Loknath Das
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…
Tonights chat includes: * Trump’s latest attack on social media may be a bit of a stretch, but it does bring to light the power that the social media platforms have in controlling what information is made available to users. * By simple tweaks to an algorithm, it’s not unthinkable that the platforms could push a bias upon viewers. The defining factor of every algorithm is to deliver content that’s going to be relevant to users; if you continue to react to specific topics, alt-right bias perhaps, then you’ll get more of that subject matter in your feed. * It’s…
Psychologists and charities are calling for more research into how social media addiction could be affecting older generations. The call comes as thousands of people start the first-ever major social media detox initiative – ‘Scroll Free September’. The Royal Society For Public Health (RSPH), which is leading the campaign, expects tens of thousands of people from 56 different nations to quit the most popular social media apps for the month. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and YouTube will be off limits to all who take part. The charity points to growing evidence of the negative impacts of social media in young…
A quiet night for lovers of Sportswatch, in the sense of no AFL, rugby union or netball on offer, but what a big night in the NRL. The Roosters have claimed a surprise come-from-third minor premiership, helped in no small part by the spectacular self-destruction of wooden-spooners the Parramatta Eels. But on the Gold Coast, it was all about one man tonight – the one, the only, Johnathan Thurston. He finished his 323rd game as he had countless others, an absolute winner. 10 points and a massive hand (or boot) in several of the tries, with impeccable kicking and a few…
The big story in China’s tech sector this week was Beijing’s renewed clampdown on online games, which sent shares of Internet giant Tencent Holdings into a tailspin. On Thursday, a report from China’s Ministry of Education blamed the proliferation of mobile phones and other gadgets for a surge in near-sightedness among the nation’s youth. The ministry called for sweeping restrictions on online games, including a new system for age ratings and strict limits on the amount of online playtime for minors. Shares of Tencent, the world’s biggest online game distributor, sank more than 5% in Friday trading. Beijing has been ratcheting up…
The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre and messaging service provider WhatsAppafter a plea sought direction to restrain the app from proceeding with its payments systems unless it fully complies with RBI’s provisions. A bench of Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman and Justice Indu Malhotra sought response from WhatsApp, Law and Justice Ministry, Finance Ministry and Information Technology Ministry within four weeks. Advocate Virag Gupta, appearing for the petitioner Centre for Accountability and Systemic Change, contended that the messaging platform does not comply with provision of mandating a Grievance Officer and other laws of India including Know Your Customer (KYC) norms…
Facebook is testing a new way to get people to make new connections on the social networking site. The company is testing a feature called ‘things in common’, and as the name suggests, it will highlight things that are common between you and a non-friend user. So, for example, if you have a colleague who you haven’t befriended yet on Facebook, the site will highlight that in an effort to persuade you to add them to your friend list. So, according to Cnet, Facebook is testing this label feature with a select group of people in the US, and there is no word…
Social media platforms will never be allowed to abuse India’s election process and stringent measures backed by laws on data protection and individual privacy have been put in place, Information Technology (IT) Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has said. Addressing the plenary of the G-20 Digital Economy Ministerial meeting in Salata, Argentina, on August 23-24, Prasad also noted that India had taken serious note of the reported data misuse by social media platforms and said the purity of the democratic process should never be compromised, an IT Ministry statement said on Sunday. The Minister’s remarks come after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) launched a…