Speaking of an “insidious grip” that social media activities may have on young people, a top health official in England has asked social media companies like Facebook to do more to protect children from addictive habits and dangerous content, The Telegraph reported. “There is emerging evidence of a link between semi-addictive and manipulative online activities and mental health pressures on our teenagers and young people,” Chief Executive of National Health Service (NHS) Simon Stevens was quoted as saying. “Parents are only too aware of the insidious grip that some of these activities can have on young people’s lives,” he added. In order…
Author: Loknath Das
Facebook officially ditches its efforts to deliver high-speed internet via solar-powered drones. The decision reportedly caused 16 employees from the project to lose their jobs. Taking Another Approach Sources confirm that in its place, the social network company plans to redirect its resources in order to work with partners such as Airbus. Together, both hope to develop high altitude platform stations (HAPS). Project Aquila was the name assigned to it when the original attempt started in 2014. The team was able to push for two public test flights wherein the first one managed to damage the prototype aircraft. Even though there are rumors…
On this episode of Too Embarrassed to Ask, entrepreneur Anil Dash, the CEO of Fog Creek Software, talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about ethics and accountability in the tech industry. (But you know you really want to hear about the mangoes.) You can read a write-up of the interview here or listen to the whole thing in the audio player above. Below, we’ve posted a lightly edited complete transcript of their conversation. If you like this, be sure to subscribe to Too Embarrassed to Ask on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Overcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.Kara Swisher: Hi. I’m Kara Swisher, editor at large at Recode, and you’re…
Activists opposed to the newly introduced social media and mobile money tax have warned government to brace itself for an array of protest activities starting next week on Wednesday. While launching their protest campaign dubbed “This tax must go” following government’s failure to heed to an ultimatum issued by the same group early in the week, the activists from different professions urged Ugandans to dress in red on Wednesday, July 11 and hold peaceful demonstrations against the new taxes. On July 1, government introduced a one percent levy on every mobile money transaction and Shs 200 daily tax on usage…
Welcome to this week’s top social media stories. Instagram continues to innovate with even more new features and Facebook to add more transparency to Pages and Ads. And What about the comeback of Wandering Girl? Instagram is not only one of the top social media apps, it also is one of the fastest growing. This success is of course linked to the constant innovations the platform keeps on bringing. This week, Instagram introduced Music Stickers and started testing a new open-end question stickers to generate even more engagement on Stories. On the Facebook side, it still is all about transparency, privacy and playing…
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has said it was “very sad” that five people lost their lives in Dhule district only because of rumours and sought stronger measures by social media platforms to check their spread. Modern means of communication, he said, are for sharing information and knowledge and should be used judiciously. In the wake of the lynching of five tribals in Dhule district, the state government initiated a campaign to sensitise people to check the spread of rumours on social media and to act responsibly, he said. On July 1, five nomadic tribals were lynched by a mob…
Those who can do; those who can’t spoof,” said an old colleague of mine back in the Eighties, but even she couldn’t have imagined just how much of an ironic world we would live in one day, some three decades later, a world diminished by memes, traduced by emojis. Just look at Instagram, a forum where irony and righteousness cohabit; or the microclimates of fashion, where irony has escalated so much that luxury brands now positively encourage the lampooning of their logos; or the art world, where imitation is no longer the sincerest form of flattery, but the most remunerative.…
Facebook has apologised after its content-filtering algorithms flagged the US Declaration of Independence as a hate speech. Parts of the document was flagged as “hate speech” by Facebook bots after a Liberty, Texas-based newspaper, the Liberty County Vindicator, posted on Facebook “small bites” from the Declaration in the lead up to the country’s Independence Day on July 4. Facebook later restored the post and tendered an apology to the newspaper, Liberty County Vindicator said in a report on Tuesday. The newspaper broke the Declaration down into 12 small bites and decided to post one each morning from June 24 to July…
In another move to put a stop to the circulation of spam on its platform, WhatsApp is working on a Suspicious Link Detection feature. The new feature, which is presently said to be under testing, helps users detect suspicious links available within their WhatsApp messages. It is a part of the WhatsApp beta for Android version 2.18.204 and later, though not available for the masses at the initial stage. The latest development hits amidst different measures by the Facebook-owned company to limit the circulation of spam and fake news through the instant messaging app that has over 1.5 billion monthly active users worldwide.…
Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has overtaken Warren Buffett as the world’s third-richest person, further solidifying technology as the most robust creator of wealth. Zuckerberg, who trails only Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, eclipsed Buffett Friday as Facebook shares climbed 2.4 percent, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. It’s the first time that the three wealthiest people on the ranking made their fortunes from technology. Zuckerberg, 34, is now worth $81.6 billion (approximately Rs. 5.61 lakh crores), about $373 million (roughly Rs. 2,565 crores) more than Buffett, 87, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Zuckerberg’s ascent has been driven by investors’ continued embrace of Facebook,…