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A group of US lawmakers said Facebook cannot be trusted to manage cryptocurrency and urged the social media platform to discontinue immediately a small pilot of its cryptocurrency wallet named Novi, which was launched on Tuesday. US Democratic senators Brian Schatz, Sherrod Brown, Richard Blumenthal, Elizabeth Warren, and Tina Smith voiced their opposition to Facebook’s two-year-old effort

Instagram is adding a bunch of new features to its Feed and Reels. The Facebook-owned photo-sharing platform has announced that it is testing the Collabs feature to strengthen the relationship between content creators. With the latest feature, users on the platform can co-author Feed posts and Reels with others. In the shared post, both the

Facebook is planning to rebrand itself with a new name next week to reflect its focus on building the metaverse, the Verge reported on Tuesday, citing a source with direct knowledge of the matter. Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg plans to talk about the name change at the company’s annual Connect conference on October

WhatsApp has integrated its joinable calls feature — which lets users join an ongoing group video — directly into group chats. The latest update will give users the option to join an ongoing group call right from the group chat tab. Joinable calls were first introduced on WhatsApp in July this year. The instant messaging

Telegram has become the latest app to surpass 1 billion installs on the Google Play store. The sudden increase in downloads could be attributed to major outages at Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram earlier this month. Founded by Pavel Durov Telegram is slowly increasing its market presence and gained more users due to the outages at

Facebook on Monday announced plans to hire 10,000 people in the European Union to build the metaverse, a virtual reality version of the Internet that the tech giant sees as the future. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been a leading voice in Silicon Valley hype around the idea of the metaverse, which would blur the

Twitter on Tuesday rolled out new advertisement features and revamped the algorithm that decides which advertisements users see, as part of an effort to lay the groundwork to launch future e-commerce features, the social networking company told Reuters. The new features come as Twitter is pushing to grow its performance advertising business, a strategy that

Microsoft is pulling the plug on LinkedIn in China nearly seven years after its launch, marking the retreat of the last major US-owned social network in China as authorities there further tighten their control over the Internet sector. LinkedIn said in a blog post on Thursday that it would replace the platform later this year

The attorneys general of 14 US states sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asking if the top disseminators of vaccine disinformation on the platform received special treatment from the company. The line of inquiry was generated after Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen used internal documents to disclose that the social media platform has built

Facebook will now count activists and journalists as “involuntary” public figures and so increase protections against harassment and bullying targeted at these groups, its global safety chief said in an interview this week. The social media company, which allows more critical commentary of public figures than of private individuals, is changing its approach on the

WhatsApp on Thursday started rolling out end-to-end encryption for backups stored on Google Drive and iCloud. The rollout has started months after the Facebook-owned company tested the update internally. Last month, WhatsApp announced that it would start rolling out end-to-end encrypted cloud backups for Android and iOS users. The opt-in feature will help users protect

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) has proposed fining Facebook up to EUR 36 million (roughly Rs. 310 crores) in one of more than a dozen probes it has opened into the social media giant, according to a draft decision published by the complainant. Under European Union 2018 data protection rules, the DPC must now share the

Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell on Tuesday called on Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to preserve all documents related to a testimony last week from company whistleblower Frances Haugen. “The testimony … raises significant concerns about whether Facebook has misled the public, federal regulators, and this committee,” said Cantwell, a Democrat. “This committee will

A new study by Online Mortgage Advisor has revealed that India has five of the top 20 happiest cities in the world to buy a home. The study also revealed that Mumbai is the least happy city to buy a home in the world, while Surat was at the fifth spot in the same list.

WhatsApp has been spotted testing a new custom privacy setting for Android users to let them hide their ‘About’ status updates from specific contacts. The option to hide the ‘About’ status from specific contacts, which is yet to be available to beta testers, would be available alongside the existing privacy options. The change is likely

Facebook’s Instagram said on Monday it is testing a feature to notify users of outages or technical issues directly on the photo-sharing app, days after two outages disrupted the social media giant’s services. The test will run in the United States and will go on for a few months, Instagram said in a blog post.

Facebook is rolling out a new feature to enhance users’ audio experience on the platform. The social media giant has unveiled Live Audio Rooms to public figures, creators, and groups globally. The new feature — launched in response to rising interest in Clubhouse — will allow users to host live audio discussions on the platform.

WhatsApp is reportedly working on letting users pause voice recordings while they are being recorded, through a future update. The alleged update will let users pause and resume recording their voice message right from where they had paused. Furthermore, the instant messaging service is also reportedly working on fixing an issue with chat backups. A

A Facebook executive said Sunday that the company would introduce new measures on its apps to prompt teens away from harmful content, as US lawmakers scrutinise how Facebook and subsidiaries like Instagram affect young people’s mental health. Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, also expressed openness to the idea of letting regulators have access

Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov seems to know just the right way to celebrate his 37th birthday. The founder of the cross-platform cloud-based instant messaging system turned a year older on October 10, and chose to drop some life lessons for his followers. He chose to do it on Telegram itself. Given that he

Facebook on Friday said users around the world again had problems accessing its services for hours due to a tweak of its system, just days after a massive outage caused in a similar fashion. “Sincere apologies to anyone who wasn’t able to access our products in the last couple of hours,” a Facebook spokesperson told

Facebook on Friday said it will stop allowing the sale of land in Amazon rainforest conservation areas at marketplaces on the social network or its Instagram and WhatsApp services. The announcement came as Facebook defends itself against accusations that it has long put profit over societal good, and caused some online to question why it

WhatsApp was recently spotted testing end-to-end encrypted cloud backups. The change is rolling out to beta testers on both Android and iOS platforms, according to a report. WhatsApp’s new update aims to protect backups stored on Google Drive and iCloud by giving users the option to encrypt them. The process adds an additional layer of

Twitter said it has agreed to sell mobile advertisement company MoPub to AppLovin for $1.05 billion (roughly Rs. 7,850 crores) in cash, as the microblogging platform looks to focus more on advertisements on its own app and website. MoPub, which generated about $188 million (roughly Rs. 1,400 crores) in annual revenue for Twitter last year,

Facebook has redesigned its Page sections in India to make it easier to differentiate between personal and public profiles. Facebook Pages are different from profiles and they are specifically meant for businesses, brands, organisations and public figures to share their stories and connect with people. The new Page design, Facebook says, aims to make it

YouTube will no longer make its annual year-end rewind videos, the company has confirmed. YouTube Rewind, a project that was cancelled last year due to COVID-19, will not make a comeback this year. In fact, the company has decided to stop making rewind videos altogether claiming that the platform is too massive and incorporating all

Facebook has slowed down the rollout of new products in recent days, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter. Executives at the social media company have also put a hold on some work on existing products, the report said. Facebook did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Snap is launching an in-app tool to educate users searching for drug-related key words on Snapchat about the dangers of drugs and is working on tools for parents to help keep teenagers safe on the service, the company said on Thursday. The announcement comes after a public safety alert from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)

Twitter is testing a new feature that allows users to get the vibe of a conversation before they join in. The microblogging platform is testing new prompts on both Android and iOS apps, it announced today. The new ‘prompts’ feature will warn users before they get involved in a conversation that could get heated. It

WhatsApp for Android is in testing a profile photo privacy setting that will let users hide their profile photos from specific contacts, according to a report. The custom privacy setting may come alongside the existing options to let you show your profile photo to everyone, all contacts, and nobody. The change is said to be