Just hours after Rhyhiem Ainsworth Barton, 17, was shot dead in south London, his friends posted a tribute on social media. The slickly made music video on YouTube lamented the young rapper’s death, but was accompanied by numerous posts apportioning blame for his murder and calling for retribution. It highlights a growing phenomenon: the use of social media in often glamorising gang violence and fuelling resentment and reprisals from rival groups. Just last month, Scotland Yard Commissioner Cressida Dick spoke out about the exploitation of internet platforms by those bent on violence. She told the Times that websites and mobile apps…
Author: Loknath Das
As executives from Silicon Valley’s social media giants — Facebook, YouTube and Twitter — gathered last week at a Stanford University forum to discuss their roles in spreading conspiracy theories, hate speech and fake news, the problems were clear. The solutions, however, weren’t. “Our industry was too slow to wake up to this threat,” said Facebook’s Vice President of Public Policy Elliot Schrage. “It’s not does it happen, it’s how you manage it. All of us in the digital sphere, particularly Facebook, have a long way to go to strike that digital balance.”The forum discussing free speech in the social…
The move is unlikely to go down well in a country where more than 40 percent of people use the internet. Finance Minister Matia Kasaija told Reuters that the tax will levy 200 Ugandan shillings (US$0.027) per day on each mobile phone subscriber using platforms such as WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook. “We’re looking for money to maintain the security of the country and extend electricity so that you people can enjoy more of social media, more often, more frequently,” he said. But Museveni seems to have a different take on the law. In a statement quoted in Ugandan daily The Daily Monitor on April 1, he portrayed social media sites…
WhatsApp is set to get many new features like group video calling and third-party stickers in the near future, but for now leaks indicate a separate set of features in the offing very soon. Fresh leaks hint that work on the WhatsApp iOS Business app has finally begun. The recently launched business-oriented service for small businesses was started by the company in January for Android users only. Separately, WhatsApp’s latest Android beta version hints that the company has registered a new domain name called wa.me, a short link for api.whatsapp.com, and it opens a chat automatically without the help of the app in the browser.…
Food delivery company GrubHub may be one of the first tech firms to feel the impact of a ruling this week from California’s highest court that makes it easier for workers to prove they are a company’s employees and entitled to costly legal protections. Late on Friday, lawyers for a former GrubHub delivery worker asked a US appeals court in San Francisco to send his closely watched case against the company back to a judge who had previously dismissed it. In light of the California Supreme Court’s decision, the lawyers said, the judge should reconsider Raef Lawson’s claims that he was an employee…
A group of engineers has developed a smart microchip that can self-start and continue to operate even when the battery runs out of energy. This could help in manufacturing smaller and cheaper Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Called Batless, the smart microchip was developed by engineers from the National University of Singapore and is designed with a novel power management technique that allows it to self-start and continue to function under dim light without any battery assistance, using a very small on-chip solar cell. Its functioning was presented at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) 2018 conference in San Francisco. “We have demonstrated that…
In this age of Instagram and Twitter, sometimes the chatter in the comments or threads are more entertaining than the posts themselves. If you’ve been a supporter and follower of the Toronto Raptors social media channels for a while, you may have noticed a change in tone over the past year. The new attitude, vibe and particular brand of slang has people in the comments speculating about the author. Well, meet Digital Communications Coordinator Soheil Jamshidi the voice of the Raptors’ Twitter and Instagram accounts. Born in Tehran, Iran, Jamshidi immigrated to Canada with his family when he was four years old.…
Keeping up with social media seems like an impossible task some days. No sooner do you perfect your marketing on a platform than a new one springs up or begins to rise in popularity. On top of that, the makeup of your Internet audience is constantly changing and shifting. The best way to figure out how to plan your summer social media marketing campaign is to look at upcoming trends. 1. Event Tie-Ins One way to up the presence of your brand on social media is to figure out which summer events you can relate to your industry. One of…
Deepika Padukone has a little ‘Throwback Thursday’ treat for us. The actress shared a throwback picture on Instagram with her Yeh Jawani Hai Deewanico-star Ranbir Kapoor and captioned it “Jab Naina met Bunny….” In the picture, Deepika can be seen posing with Ranbir Kapoor at the Mijwan Fashion Show held recently. The duo were showstoppers for Manish Malhotra at the fashion show. In April, the duo walked the ramp at the Mijwan Fashion Show 2018, photos of which had sent the internet into a meltdown. Ranbir and Deepika famously co-starred in 2013’s Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani, several years after they dated for a brief while.…
Meituan Dianping, the internet giant backed by China’s most valuable tech corporation, has begun investigating reports of a data breach that exposed the private information of tens of thousands of users. The food-delivery and e-commerce giant said it’s working with police to investigate an alleged leak that’s drawn fire from concerned consumers and again cast doubt on the ability of Chinese web firms to safeguard sensitive personal information. Local media reports highlighting the potential breach come as revelations about leaks at Facebook spur a regulatory and consumer backlash against internet companies around the globe. In Meituan’s case, allegedly tens of…