Remove Facebook India Policy Chief Ankhi Das, 40 rights groups write to Zuckerberg
San Francisco: Civil rights groups on Wednesday said Facebook has failed to address dangerous content in India and demanded that the head of public policy for the country be removed. A letter addressed to Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg and his second-in-command Sheryl Sandberg wanted the social network’s India policy chief Ankhi Das sidelined pending the […]
Trump team drunk on its own Kool-Aid uses 2016 strategy on social media
Washington: A message saying you “won’t be safe” in Joe Biden’s America. The former vice president shown “sleeping” during a television interview. Biden “hiding”—alone—in his basement. All three videos featured in social media of President Donald Trump and his team as recently as the past week as he sought to close the gap on his […]
US Justice department to bring antitrust case against Google, says report
US Attorney General William P Barr plans to bring an antitrust case against Alphabet, Google’s parent company, and has dismissed lawyers’ request for more time to build a strong case, the New York Times reported. Most of the more than 40-member team of lawyers who have been investigating the tech giant were opposed to orders […]
Microsoft’s new software that detects deepfakes launched ahead of US vote
San Francisco: Microsoft has unveiled software that can help spot “deepfake” photos or videos, adding to the list of programs designed to fight the hard-to-detect images ahead of the US presidential election. The Video Authenticator software analyses an image or each frame of a video, looking for evidence of manipulation that could even be invisible […]
Trump restates demand for cut from TikTok sale as September 15 deadline looms
San Francisco: President Donald Trump on Tuesday repeated his demand for a piece of the action from any sale of TikTok’s US operations for forcing such a deal. TikTok has been at the centre of a diplomatic storm between Washington and Beijing, and Trump gave Americans a deadline to stop doing business with TikTok’s Chinese […]
Facebook threatens to block Australian users from sharing news
San Francisco: Facebook threatened to block Australian publishers and individuals from sharing news stories on its platform in reaction to an Australian measure that could require it to compensate media organizations for its use of their stories. The social network said the Australian move would force it to pay arbitrary and theoretically unlimited sums for […]
Zoom barabar Zoom: Kalbeliya gypsy dancers take their art online to survive
Jodhpur: As a blackout plunged her desert dwelling into darkness, Suwa Devi, a dancer belonging to India’s Kalbeliya gypsy community, asked her neighbour to turn on his jeep’s headlights so she could continue teaching her Zoom class, outside. The coronavirus pandemic has forced many people to go online, but the largely nomadic, marginalised Kalbeliya face […]
Zuckerberg does it again, this time he’s sorry for not removing Kenosha militia page
Washington: Facebook made a mistake in not removing a militia group’s page earlier this week that called for armed civilians to enter Kenosha, Wisconsin, amid violent protests after police shot Jacob Blake, CEO Mark Zuckerberg says. The page for the “Kenosha Guard” violated Facebook’s policies and had been flagged by “a bunch of people,” Zuckerberg […]
Walmart joins Microsoft in bid to buy TikTok
San Francisco: US retail giant Walmart said Thursday it had teamed with Microsoft in a bid to buy Chinese-owned short-form video app TikTok. “We are confident that a Walmart and Microsoft partnership would meet both the expectations of US TikTok users while satisfying the concerns of US government regulators,” the retailer told AFP. It may […]
TikTok CEO resigns amid Trump pressure to sell short-video app
Hong Kong: TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer resigned Thursday amid US pressure for its Chinese owner to sell the popular video app, which the White House says is a security risk. In a letter to employees, Mayer said that his decision to leave comes after the “political environment has sharply changed.” His resignation comes after US […]
Charges of dominance mar Apple’s $2 trillion success under Tim Cook
Berkeley: When Tim Cook took over after Steve Jobs’ death in 2011, Apple was worth just under $400 billion; it’s worth five times more than that today, and has just become the first US company to boast a market value of $2 trillion. Its share performance has easily eclipsed the benchmark S&P 500, which has […]
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube prepare to tackle Trump attacks if he doesn’t ‘go quietly’
San Francisco: Twitter on Friday said it is bracing for efforts by President Donald Trump or others to attack the integrity of the US election, as US media reported that Facebook and YouTube were planning defences of their own. Trump has used Twitter in particular to stoke unsubstantiated doubts about mail-in voting, just months before […]
Facebook removes Trump’s post for the first time, Twitter blocks his campaign account
San Francisco: Facebook and Twitter took aim at US President Donald Trump and his campaign Wednesday over a video post in which he contended that children are “almost immune” to the coronavirus, a claim they said amounted to “misinformation.” In an extraordinary move, Facebook removed the clip from the president’s account—the first time it has […]
Trump wants a big cut from TikTok US’ sale for the treasury
Washington: President Donald Trump has demanded that the US treasury get a substantial chunk of the TikTok sale proceeds, as he set a September 15 as the deadline for the popular Chinese short video app to be out of business in the country unless it is bought by an American company. Trump was speaking to […]
Microsoft in talks to buy TikTok’s US business, say reports
New York: Amid reports that President Donald Trump will order China’s ByteDance to sell its hit video app TikTok’s US operations because of national-security concerns, Microsoft has emerged as a leading buyer. “We are looking at TikTok,” Trump told reporters Friday at the White House. “We may be banning TikTok.” Reports by Bloomberg News and […]
Australia unveils law forcing Google and Facebook to pay for news content
Sydney/Canberra: Australia unveiled a draft law Friday to force Google and Facebook to pay news media for their content in a “world-leading” initiative sure to prompt a confrontation with the digital giants. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced the “mandatory code of conduct” to govern relations between the struggling news industry and the tech firms after 18 […]
NASA launches most sophisticated Mars rover to look for signs of ancient life
Cape Canaveral, Florida: The biggest, most sophisticated Mars rover ever built — a car-size vehicle bristling with cameras, microphones, drills and lasers — blasted off for the red planet Thursday as part of an ambitious, long-range project to bring the first Martian rock samples back to Earth to be analysed for evidence of ancient life. […]
Turkey approves social media law that opposition calls censorship
Istanbul: Turkey’s parliament approved a law early Wednesday that gives authorities greater power to regulate social media despite concerns of growing censorship. The law requires major social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter to keep representative offices in Turkey to deal with complaints against content on their platforms. The government says the legislation was […]
Twitter follows Facebook, removes virus video retweeted by Trump
Washington: Twitter said Tuesday it had withdrawn a video retweeted by President Donald Trump in which doctors made allegedly false claims about the coronavirus pandemic, after Facebook took similar action. “Tweets with the video are in violation of our COVID-19 misinformation policy. We are taking action in line with our policy,” a Twitter spokesperson said, […]
Government bans 47 more Chinese mobile apps
New Delhi: India has banned 47 more Chinese apps just weeks after blocking the highly popular video-sharing platform TikTok and 58 others over national security and privacy concerns, an information ministry official said Monday. “We have banned 47 mobile apps from China in this ongoing exercise which highlights the government’s seriousness about data privacy and […]