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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Facebook bans posts claiming to change sexual orientation of gays
San Francisco: Facebook on Friday said it is banning content that promotes “conversion therapy,” which is based on the unfounded notion that gays can change their sexual orientation through psychological or spiritual intervention. Facebook and its image-centric social network Instagram are updating policies to require removal of content that directly promotes conversion therapy when such […]
Microsoft, Zoom join Facebook, Google, Twitter to stall Hong Kong user data requests
San Francisco: Microsoft and Zoom on Tuesday joined other major internet firms that have stopped considering requests by Hong Kong’s government for information on users in the wake of China’s imposition of a sweeping new security law. Microsoft and Zoom said they are pausing consideration of data requests by officials or police in Hong Kong, […]
France calls out US’ bully stance on taxing Big Tech
Paris: France and the US locked horns Thursday over taxing digital giants such as Google and Facebook, after Washington said it was breaking off talks aimed at establishing a global framework for making the companies pay larger levies where they operate. “This letter is a provocation,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said, confirming receipt […]
Unlike 2016, Facebook says it will block foreign state ads on US election
San Francisco: Facebook says it will block ads from foreign state media during the US election, as well as allowing users to hide all paid-for political messages. The move comes with the social media giant under growing pressure over its hands-off approach to misinformation and inflammatory posts—including from Donald Trump—and following criticism it turned a […]
WhatsApp payments launched in Brazil, ahead of its second attempt in India with Jio
New Delhi: WhatsApp has launched its ‘WhatsApp Pay’ in Brazil, nearly two years after it began testing the payments service in India. In 2018, the Facebook-owned company had started testing the service in India, which allows users to utilise the messaging platform to send and receive money. However, the ambitious plan has been caught in […]
What’s being done about fake news? EU wants Google, Facebook monthly reports
Brussels: A senior European Union official warned online platforms like Google and Facebook on Wednesday to step up the fight against fake news, coming notably from countries like China and Russia, but she praised the approach of Twitter for fact-checking a tweet by U.S. President Donald Trump. Unveiling a plan to fight disinformation linked to […]
Assam Chief Minister Sonowal’s Facebook flooded with ‘Comrade’, ‘Lal Salam’ greetings
Guwahati: Assam’s BJP Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal is being defiantly addressed as ‘comrade’ and greeted with ‘lal salam’ on Facebook by netizens outraged by the charge-sheeting of peasant leader and activist Akhil Gogoi over alleged sedition and terrorist activities. Days after Gogoi and three of his associates were charged by the NIA, which cited the […]
Won’t support evildoers: Snapchat won’t recommend Trump anymore to users
San Francisco: Snapchat on Wednesday became the latest social network moving to curb the reach of US President Donald Trump, claiming the president has been inciting “racial violence.” The youth-focused social network said it would no longer promote Trump on its Discover platform for recommended content. “We will not amplify voices who incite racial violence […]
Facebook users, you can now add songs to your profile from Saregama
New Delhi: Saregama on Wednesday announced a global deal with Facebook to license its music for video and other social experiences across Facebook and Instagram. The partnership will allow users to choose from a wide variety of music to add to their social experiences such as videos, stories via music stickers and other creative content, […]
Aussie papers go digital, downsize amid double whammy of Google-Facebook and COVID
Canberra: Australia’s largest newspaper publisher, News Corp., announced on Thursday that most of its suburban and regional mastheads across the country will become digital-only next month due to the pandemic. News Corp. Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller described the shift that will take effect on June 29 as significant and said jobs will be lost. […]
Don’t let Big Tech turn the world into a China, Noam Chomsky warns
New York: The role of technology in helping push back against the novel coronavirus has been hailed widely. But it also means that people are constantly being watched by entities that can set the tone for public behaviour without giving a shred of consideration to people’s privacy. One of the greatest contemporary thinkers, Noam Chomsky, […]
Boycott Google, Facebook to force them to pay for news, says Australian watchdog
Sydney: Australia’s competition watchdog suggested Tuesday that local media could organise a “collective boycott” of Google and Facebook to force the tech giants to pay for news they put on their platforms. The radical idea was among a series of possible bargaining tools put forward by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) as it […]
Facebook cancels all large physical events till June 2021
SAN FRANSISCO: After Microsoft, Facebook has cancelled all physical conferences and events it had planned with 50 or more people through June 2021. It includes the Oculus Connect 7 virtual reality conference in San Jose. According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, some of these will be organized as virtual events instead. “We will share more […]