Facebook, the social networking giant, will help Sterlite Technologies Ltd — one of the oldest private sector cable manufacturers in India — to create specialized 5G radio units. Facebook will help Sterlite Technologies create two products — a 5G radio unit designed for dense deployments, and another, dual-tech 4G+5G radio unit. These are more complicated […]
The new rules for messaging apps announced as part of today’s digital/online media regulatory framework will make it impossible for WhatsApp to continue to operate in India in its present form. One of the key demands placed by the government in front of WhatsApp has always been that it should attach an origin-ID to all […]
The Indian government is all set to announce new rules that govern online and social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Hotstar and Amazon Prime today, according to a report by financial news channel ET Now. The IT and Information & Broadcasting ministries will hold a combined press conference at 2 PM today to […]
Bharti Airtel has announced its entry into the lucrative, Rs 30,000 cr digital advertising market in India, making it the most serious competitor yet to Google and Facebook, which together control about 90% of the market at present. While Google leverages its access to search data and Facebook taps its access to behavioral data on […]
Signal, the open source messaging platform, has become extremely slow and even unresponsive in several parts of India after a sudden rush of new users looking for a more secure alternative to WhatsApp. Global interest in Signal app has jumped by around 50 times since WhatsApp announced changes to its terms of use last week. […]
When Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan put up a black rectangle as the profile picture on his official Facebook page, it is unlikely that he anticipated the reaction, particularly from a small state across the border. Khan, who changed his profile picture to black on the night of Aug 14, simply wrote #15AugustBlackDay next to […]
India’s Information Technology Department today unveiled a new plan of action to combat fake news that would require foreign social media firms like Facebook, Twitter and Google to establish offices in India and actively help in flagging and tracking down people who post troublesome messages online. Ravi Shankar Prasad also said WhatsApp, in particular, has […]
Facebook has emerged as the social media platform that has the highest degree of compliance with Government of India’s blocking requests, while Twitter and Instagram have the least. In all, the government issued blocking requests for 2,205 posts in 2017 and 2018 (up to June), out of which 74% were taken down by the concerned […]
Facebook has refused to block a ‘drinker’s group’ that the Kerala Police had requested to be taken down, according to local media reports. The social network reportedly told the police that the group was not in violation of its guidelines and cannot be taken down without proper justification. The Kerala Excise department is trying to […]
Social media users posting in one of Kerala’s biggest Facebook Groups are facing the prospect of being sent to jail for ‘encouraging alcoholism’ by glamorizing drinking. Given there’s no law against glamorizing drinking, Kerala Excise Department is reported to have directed the police to use other laws — such as those against child abuse and […]
Authorities at Little Lourdes Mission Hospital near Pala in Kerala have stopped asking patients to specify their religion after a unique form of protest by a young man named Sunil K Sudheer. Sunil had reached the hospital earlier this week for a doctor’s appointment for his 58-year-old mother Sarasamma. “I started filling the registration form,” […]
WhatsApp, India’s largest communication platform used by an estimated 65% of the country’s online population, has come under scrutiny for providing a conduit to distribute ‘fake news’ after multiple cases of lynchings came to light. While the company has urged ‘society and companies’ to help tackle the menace, the messaging application has some more to […]
WhatsApp, the biggest interpersonal text-messaging platform in India, has started rolling out its ‘verified accounts’ feature with IndusInd Bank as one of its first customers. For now, verified accounts are limited to businesses, and will be used to assure customers that they are communicating with the official, and authorized, phone number of a business or […]
Facebook, the largest social network on earth, has added several new features to its ‘Pages’ feature, including the ‘Poll’s option that was removed five years ago. Administrators of Facebook pages can now create a poll by clicking on the ‘+’ sign and choosing ‘polls’ as the type for the new post they are able to […]
The central government blocked 1,791 urls — websites or pages — and the courts blocked another 2,133 urls in 2016 and 2017, the department of telecom said. This was in addition to around 4,700 child pornography websites that were blocked as part of a CBI investigation. All content blocks on the internet are put in […]
Tens of thousands of five-star ratings given to Arnab Goswami’s Republic TV mysteriously disappeared over night, pushing the rating on the channel’s official page to a low of 2.1 stars out of 5.0. It is not clear why the ratings were removed. Over the last three days, the channel has come under a ‘rating attack’ […]
Republic TV, the channel launched by Arnab Goswami — the former editor of Times Now — has come in for a barrage of criticism on social media after Malayalis took offence to what has been portrayed as repeated attempts by the channel to tarnish the reputation of the state. The channel, which used to be […]
Social network Facebook said it has tied up with the Election Commission of India to remind Indians to register themselves to vote. “Starting from 1st July till 4th July, the voter registration reminder will be sent to people on Facebook in India who are eligible to vote,” Facebook said, on a day when the company […]
Facebook has restored ‘Atheist Republic’, by far the biggest page operated by the Atheist community on any social media network, after it was shut down using ‘mass reporting’ by religious people. The move followed a big outcry among atheists and free-speech advocates online. The page was taken down about 24 hours ago, and remained inaccessible […]
Facebook has made a strategic change in the way it facilitates brands, organizations and celebrities interact with their followers on the social network. It has started de-emphasizing ‘likes’ and instead promoting ‘follows’. Unlike competing platforms like Google Plus and Twitter, Facebook has, for years, allowed users to follow a brand or celebrity or organization’s updates only […]
