Social

Apple on Wednesday confirmed that it removed popular Russian social network VKontakte from its App Store globally due to sanctions imposed by Britain. The British government on Monday sanctioned 92 Russian individuals and entities after President Vladimir Putin’s regime held referendums in Moscow-controlled areas of Ukraine – denounced by Kyiv and its allies as a

Newly disclosed text messages between Elon Musk and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal showed that the two men briefly bonded in the spring over their love of engineering — at least until Musk publicly tweeted this message early on April 9: ‘ Is Twitter dying? ‘” That soured a relationship that appeared to bloom around the

Twitter has announced that it will begin rolling out a redesigned video viewing experience on its platform that will allow users to watch video appearing on their feeds or tweets in a full-screen view. Users will also be able to vertically scroll from the full-screen view to watch more video content. The company has also

Elon Musk was denied access to additional documents about Twitter’s internal measure of robot and spam accounts after a judge concluded the company already disclosed enough of the information as part of the billionaire’s legal fight over a scuttled takeover. Twitter has “done enough” in handing over documents about the so-called mDAU — a metric

A new trove of text messages between Elon Musk and Twitter executives, close friends, potential investors and Silicon Valley bros sheds light on how a $44 billion (nearly Rs. 3,58,100 crore) deal by the world’s richest person to buy the social media company came about — and ended up in court. The texts show who

Meta has unveiled a new artificial intelligence system called ‘Make-A-Video’ that will allow users to generate short video clips by entering a text description of the desired scene. The announcement follows the company’s recent advancements in generative technology research, which seeks to give creators more creative control over artificially intelligent image generation. With the announcement,

Facebook-parent Meta put out word to employees on Thursday that it will freeze hiring to cut costs as it endures tough economic times, The Wall Street Journal reported. Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg revealed a planned pause in hiring during a weekly all-hands meeting, the Journal reported, saying the move came as the social media titan

Facebook should pay reparations to the hundreds of thousands of Rohingyas forced from their homes in Myanmar in a campaign exacerbated by rampant online hate speech, Amnesty International said in a report Thursday. The Rohingyas, a mainly Muslim minority, were targeted by Myanmar’s military rulers in 2017 and driven into neighbouring Bangladesh, where they have

The official Twitter account of Popular Front of India (PFI) has been withheld in India by the social media platform “in response to a legal demand”, a day after the Centre banned the outfit under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) for “terror links”. The government had yesterday ordered the blocking of all the social

Some major advertisers including Dyson, Mazda, and chemicals company Ecolab have suspended their marketing campaigns or removed their ads from parts of Twitter because their promotions are appearing alongside tweets soliciting child pornography, the companies told Reuters. Ads for at least 30 brands, ranging from Walt Disney, Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Coca-Cola to a children’s hospital, have

Twitter and Elon Musk sparred in court on Tuesday, each digging for evidence to prevail in a high-stakes trial next month over the billionaire’s bid to break his buyout deal. Musk has been keen to find evidence to back his accusation that Twitter misled regulators and investors about what portion of accounts are actually spam

WhatsApp, Meta’s instant messaging and calling service, has published details of a ‘critical’ vulnerability that has been patched in a newer version of the app but might still affect older installed versions that have not been updated. The details regarding the vulnerability were revealed in a September update of WhatsApp‘s page on security advisories affecting

Meta Platforms said on Tuesday it disrupted the first known China-based influence operation focused on targeting users in the United States with political content ahead of the midterm elections in November. The network maintained fake accounts across Meta’s social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, as well as competitor service Twitter, but was small and did

Elon Musk’s deposition by Twitter lawyers has been rescheduled from this week to October 6-7, just 10 days before a trial over his bid to walk away from the $44 billion (nearly Rs. 3,59,600 crore) takeover, and the delay could play in the social network company’s favour. The deposition of the world’s richest person was

Instagram is reportedly increasing the time limit for Instagram Stories to 60 seconds, from the earlier limit of 15 seconds. Previously, Instagram Stories that were longer than 15 seconds would be broken up into separate segments. The social media company is said to have begun testing the change with select users towards the end of

Tesla CEO Elon Musk won a reprieve from questioning by Twitter lawyers Monday, according to several press reports. The billionaire had been scheduled to give a deposition in his high-stakes court fight with Twitter over whether he has to follow through with his agreement to buy the social platform for $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,37,465

WhatsApp is reportedly testing two features for Android. The first feature is companion mode support for Android tablets and the other is Do not disturb API for missed calls on the Google-owned operating system. The companion mode allows users to add a secondary device as a companion for their primary phone with WhatsApp on it

The High Court of Karnataka on Monday heard a petition by microblogging platform Twitter against the Central government’s orders asking it to block some accounts, URLs, and tweets. Twitter had challenged the orders on grounds of violation of freedom of speech and the authorities not issuing notice to the alleged violators before asking Twitter to

Twitter announced this week that it recently fixed a bug that kept users logged in to their accounts on multiple devices after they performed a voluntary password reset. The microblogging website also said that it logged out those who might have been affected due to the bug. The company also advised users to review the

Meta Platforms’ WhatsApp said on Thursday that it was working to keep users in Iran connected after the country restricted access to the app and social media platform Instagram. WhatsApp “will do anything” within its technical capacity to keep the service accessible and that it was not blocking Iranian phone numbers, the messaging service said

The US Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to approve a bill aimed at allowing news organizations to band together to negotiate with Alphabet’s Google and Meta’s Facebook and win more revenue. The bill passed the committee by a vote of 15 to 7, according to a congressional aide. It must now go to the Senate

Whistleblower Frances Haugen – a former Facebook engineer who leaked documents suggesting the firm put profits before safety – on Thursday launched an organisation devoted to fighting harm caused by social media. The new Beyond the Screen nonprofit said that its first project will be to document ways big tech is failing in its “legal

Twitter plans to provide more data to external researchers who study online misinformation and moderation, the social media company said on Thursday, part of what it says is an effort to increase transparency on the platform. The company will also open an application process to allow more people working in academia, civil society and journalism

Iranians experienced a near-total Internet blackout on Wednesday amid days of mass protests against the government over the death of a woman held by the country’s morality police for allegedly violating its strictly-enforced dress code. An Iranian official had earlier hinted that such measures might be taken out of security concerns. The loss of connectivity

A US jury on Wednesday ordered Meta to pay $174.5 million (roughly Rs. 1405 crore) for violating live-streaming patents developed by a US Army veteran seeking to fix shortcomings in battlefield communications. A trial in Texas federal court ended with jurors deciding that “live” features at Facebook and Instagram used technology patented by Voxer, a

The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) has summoned Twitter India and Delhi Police officials over alleged videos of child pornography and rape being shared on the social media platform. DCW took suo moto cognizance of several alleged tweets on the social media platform Twitter displaying child pornography. “Videos of child pornography were shared on Twitter

The US Department of Defense has launched a review of its psychological warfare operations after the discovery of fake accounts on social media promoting pro-West disinformation, an official confirmed Tuesday. Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder confirmed the review after a Washington Post report said social media giants Facebook and Twitter had shut down a number of

Twitter Inc will question Elon Musk under oath in Delaware next week as part of the litigation in the billionaire’s bid to walk away from his $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,51,320 crore) deal for the social media company. A Tuesday filing in Delaware’s Court of Chancery said Musk’s deposition is scheduled for September 26-27 and may stretch into

Twitter is expanding how it recommends posts from accounts that users do not follow, the social media company announced on Tuesday. As part of the expansion, it is also building tools for users to control and provide feedback on that content. “With millions of people signing up for Twitter every day, we want to make

WhatsApp is reportedly developing a new feature that will enable users to edit their sent text messages. Traces of this feature were reportedly spotted in the latest beta build of Whatsapp for Android. It appears that recipients of an edited message will also have to update their client to the latest build to read it,