Social media giant Facebook Friday said it is looking to scale up extending “Boost Your Business” programme to villages in India to help entrepreneurs in improving their business prospects. “We are doing a bunch of different initiatives catered specifically to arts and crafts of India that live in villages. The challenge before us now is of scaling this up,” Head ... Read More »
Social Media
Picking Genders for Characters Could Be the Next Big Thing for Emoji
According to the common emoji keyboard, women don’t run. Only men run. See? But that could soon change under a new draft proposal to the Unicode Consortium, the body that develops and maintains software standards for texts and characters. The document outlines a number of changes, including male, female and neutral gender options for many human-looking characters. If adopted, this ... Read More »
Stop Posting Photos of Kids on Facebook, French Cops Warn Parents
In its bid to save children from online sexual abuse, France’s national police has urged parents to stop posting photos of their children on Facebook and other social media platforms. According to the technology website The Verge, such images can put privacy and security of the kids in danger and, if shared widely, such photos can reach sexual predators. France’s ... Read More »
Facebook Wins Ruling Cutting Hamburg Data Regulator’s Powers
Facebook Inc. scored a victory in its battle against German privacy regulators who claim they can regulate the social network’s policies. A Hamburg court halted enforcement of an order by the city’s data watchdog who had told Facebook to allow users to sign up to the social network under a pseudonym. German law doesn’t apply to Facebook’s privacy policy, as ... Read More »
Pakistani Court Sentences Man to 13 Years in Prison for Facebook Post
A Pakistani man was sentenced to 13 years in prison Thursday for allegedly posting religiously offensive material on his Facebook page, lawyers in the case said. Rizwan Haider, 25, was convicted in an anti-terrorism court of three charges including promoting sectarian hatred, after he supposedly published a post referring to Prophet Mohammed. “This case… was registered against Haider, who is ... Read More »
Deep Drumpf: A Bot That Tweets Like Donald Trump
A researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed a Donald Trump Twitterbot that tweets out remarkably Trump-like statements such as “I’m what IS (Islamic State) doesn’t need.” Dubbed as “Deep Drumpf”, the bot is based on an artificial-intelligence (AI) algorithm that is trained on just a few hours of transcripts of Republican presidential candidate Trump’s victory speeches and ... Read More »
Twitter Taking Down Our Accounts in Fight Against IS: Anonymous
As the micro-blogging website prepares to tackle terror-related tweets, online activists now claim that in the bid to stop Islamic State (IS) from using its platform to spread its hate agenda and recruits new members, Twitter has been shutting down accounts of those who actually report terrorism. A hacker with Anonymous – a global network of activists and “hacktivists” – ... Read More »
Twitter Praised for Cracking Down on Use by Islamic State
Officials with the nonprofit Simon Wiesenthal Center praised Twitter Inc on Monday for increasing efforts to thwart Islamic State’s use of its platform for recruitment and propaganda. The centre’s Digital Terrorism and Hate Project gave Twitter a grade of “B” in a report card of social networking companies’ efforts to fight online activity by militant groups such as IS. “We ... Read More »
Microsoft Offers First Major Endorsement of EU-US ‘Privacy Shield’ Data Pact
Microsoft became on Monday the first major US tech company to say it would transfer users’ information to the United States using a new transatlantic commercial data pact and would resolve any disputes with European privacy watchdogs. Data transfers to the United States have been conducted in a legal limbo since October last year when the European Union’s top court ... Read More »
Facebook Messenger Gets Dropbox File Sharing, Video Chat Heads
Messenger users can now share photos, videos, and other files saved in the Dropbox without having to leave Facebook’s standalone instant messaging app. Dropbox on Tuesday announced the new feature which will be available to both Messenger for Android and iOS users. The app will also soon support Video Chat Heads, allowing users to continue video calls while messaging other ... Read More »