Category: Social

France will ban the use of Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok on the work phones of civil servants, Civil Service Minister Stanislas Guerini said on his Twitter account. “In order to guarantee the cybersecurity of our administrations and civil servants, the government has decided to ban recreational applications such as TikTok on the professional phones of […]

Twitter might be testing an option to let its blue tick buyers choose if they wish to display their verification badges or hide it. As Twitter gears up to remove legacy blue ticks starting April 1, it is rolling out more profile customisation features for people who have paid to get their blue ticks as […]

China insisted Friday it does not ask companies to hand over data gathered overseas, as the Chinese-owned TikTok faces mounting calls for a ban in the United States. Pressure is building on the massively popular video-sharing app — owned by the Chinese firm Bytedance — to obtain new ownership or lose access to the enormous […]

WhatsApp appears to developing a new short video message feature according to a report. The purported feature will let WhatsApp’s estimated 2.24 billion users record short video messages of up to 60 seconds to share with contacts within their chats. While the feature is in development, it cannot be tested by users on the beta […]

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 23, 2023, amid a chorus of calls from members of Congress for the federal government to ban the Chinese-owned video social media app and reports that the Biden administration is pushing for the company’s sale. The federal government, along with […]

Microsoft’s initial offer to address EU antitrust complaints filed by rivals is insufficient and the US software giant needs to do more, German software provider Nextcloud said, as regulators consider whether to open a formal investigation. French cloud computing services provider and complainant OVHcloud is also waiting for a more concrete proposal from Microsoft, a person […]

Twitter will begin removing so-called legacy verified marks from user accounts next week, as it works toward a model where only paid subscribers and members of approved organisations have that status. The move to strike legacy verification begins April 1, the San Francisco-based company said in a tweet Thursday. It’s one of the earliest policy […]

US lawmakers at a congressional hearing on Thursday accused TikTok of serving harmful content and inflicting “emotional distress” on young users, grilling the Chinese-owned app’s CEO on the company’s outsized influence on teens. Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from Washington, kicked off the hearing with TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew saying that within minutes of […]

A massive data breach that has implications for national security was unearthed by Cyberabad Police here, who arrested seven people of a gang allegedly involved in the theft and sale of sensitive data of the government and important organisations, including details of 2.55 lakh defence personnel as well as the personal and confidential data of […]

Britain’s parliament will block TikTok on all devices on its network following a similar ban on government devices, becoming the latest Western institution to bar the Chinese-owned video app over security concerns. A TikTok spokesperson called the action “misguided”, saying it was based on fundamental misconceptions about the company. “Following the government’s decision to ban […]

Microblogging platform Koo on Thursday announced the launch of new proactive content moderation features, geared to provide users with a safer social media experience. The new features developed in-house are capable of proactively detecting and blocking any form of nudity or child sexual abuse materials in less than 5 seconds, labelling misinformation and hiding toxic […]

Meta Platforms on Thursday voiced its strongest criticism to date of a push by EU telecoms operators to get Big Tech to foot additional network costs, saying this would not solve their financial problems and also ignores tech companies’ hefty investments. Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telefonica, Telecom Italia and other operators have lobbied for two decades […]

Snap, owner of photo messaging app Snapchat, launched a new division on Thursday that will help other companies build augmented reality features for their websites or apps. The division called AR Enterprise Services (ARES) marks the first time Snap will sell to business customers its AR technology, which can enhance photos and videos of the real […]

WhatsApp Desktop, the Meta-owned messaging service’s app for Windows, has received a new update. The newest version of the app is said to load faster and improve group audio and video calls. The company says that users can now invite more people to group calls. The new WhatsApp desktop app for Windows features an interface […]

China has yet again tried to assert its control on the social media space with its “anti-self-media” propaganda which means news is independently created and posted on social media or the Web by independent netizens who are not registered as journalists, Bitter Winter reported. Chinese administration said that these “self-media” producers copied the mainline media […]

A veteran Meta advertising product executive will leave the company in May, according to an internal announcement seen by Reuters, amid a months-long pruning of projects and staff that Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has dubbed the “year of efficiency.” Dan Levy, currently the social media giant’s vice president of business messaging, said in a post […]

TikTok creators and three US Democratic Party lawmakers on Wednesday said they opposed any potential ban on the Chinese-owned short video sharing app that is used by more than 150 million Americans. On Thursday TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will testify before the US House Energy and Commerce Committee amid growing calls for a ban over […]

Instagram is rolling out a new Reminder Ads feature in ads, along with testing another feature to bring ads to the search results category. Advertisements and subscriptions are the two main forms of income for these social media platforms. Meta recently introduced a paid subscription service in the US called Meta Verified. Seemingly, free Instagram […]

On Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg announced two new updates for WhatsApp groups. With the new updates, admins will get more control over their group privacy. These changes follow some updates made over the last few months, including making groups larger, and giving admins the ability to delete messages sent in the groups they manage. “Groups continue […]

TikTok was banned in India in 2020, along with several other applications, following border tensions with China nearly three years ago. The app, which was popular among users before it was banned, continues to retain information on its users from India who can no longer access the video sharing platform, according to a report. TikTok […]

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will tell lawmakers the Chinese-owned short video app with more than 150 million American users has never, and would never, share U.S. user data with the Chinese government amid growing U.S. national security concerns. “TikTok has never shared, or received a request to share, U.S. user data with the Chinese […]

Twitter is reportedly testing a feature that allows subscribers to submit government ID to have their profiles verified on the platform. Analysis of the Android version of the app shows the company is working on the ability to submit images of the front and rear sides of a document proving a user’s identity, along with […]

TikTok said on Monday the short-video sharing app now has 150 million monthly active users in the US, up from 100 million it said it had in 2020. The Chinese-owned app confirmed the figure ahead of TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew’s testimony set for Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. On Friday, six […]

Facebook content moderators in Kenya are suing the social media site’s parent company Meta and two outsourcing companies for unlawful redundancy, a rights group said on Monday. The 43 applicants say they lost their jobs with Sama, a Kenya-based firm contracted to moderate Facebook content, for organising a union. They also say they were blacklisted […]

WhatsApp has begun testing a feature on the latest beta version of the popular messaging app for Android that will display common groups when searching for a contact on WhatsApp. The change to the application’s search feature will allow users to quickly find a group with an obscure title or if its name is in […]

Twitter is set to begin charging users to receive SMS codes for two-factor authentication (2FA) on Monday. The company, which was acquired by Elon Musk in October 2022, announced last month that only users who had paid to subscribe to Twitter Blue would be able to request login codes via SMS, in order to secure their account. The […]

After the United States, the UK and New Zealand became the latest western countries to ban the Chinese-owned video-sharing platform TikTok on “government devices” citing security fears, The New York Times reported.  The UK, on Thursday, announced the ban of TikTok with immediate effect citing security fears linked to the video-sharing app’s ownership by a […]

Former US President Donald Trump wrote his first Facebook post on Friday after being banned from social media platforms for two years. “I’M BACK,” Trump posted along with a 12-second video which seems to be his victory speech after winning the 2016 election and also tried to put out his campaign for the 2024 election […]

Tech giants will likely challenge a new European Union law aimed at reining in their power with the first cases in a potential wave of litigation expected by year-end, one of the EU’s top judges said on Friday. The Digital Markets Act (DMA), which came into force in November, will classify online platforms with more […]

Meta Platforms on Friday launched its subscription service in the US, which would allow Facebook and Instagram users pay for verification in the same vein as Elon Musk-owned Twitter. The Meta Verified service will give users a blue badge after they verify their accounts using a government ID and will cost $11.99 (nearly Rs. 990) per […]