Budget 2018-19

  The new name reflected its ambitions to build the metaverse, rather than its namesake social media service, said CEO Mark Zuckerberg Facebook Inc is now called Meta, the company said on Thursday, in a rebrand that focuses on its ambitions building the “metaverse,” a shared virtual environment that it bets will be the next big computing platform. The name change comes as the world’s largest social media company battles criticisms from lawmakers and regulators over its market power, algorithmic decisions and the policing of abuses on its platforms. CEO  Mark Zuckerberg , speaking at the company’s live-streamed virtual and augmented reality conference, said the new name reflected its ambitions to build the metaverse, rather than its namesake social media service. The metaverse, a term first coined in a dystopian novel three decades ago and now attracting buzz in Silicon Valley, refers broadly to the idea of a shared virtual environment which can be accessed by people using diff...

  Facebook will expand its policies on harassment to remove more harmful content, the company said on Wednesday in its latest change following congressional testimony of whistleblower Facebook will expand its policies on harassment to remove more harmful content, the company said on Wednesday in its latest change following congressional testimony from a whistleblower who faulted the social media giant for not doing enough to stop harmful content. Under the new, more detailed harassment policy,  Facebook  will bar content that degrades or sexualises public figures, including celebrities, elected officials and others in the public eye. Existing policies already prohibit similar content about private individuals. Another change will add more protections from harassment to government dissidents, journalists and human rights activists around the world. In many nations, social media harassment has been used in efforts to silence journalists and activists. Lastly, the company ba...

  The post mortem of a farmer, Gurvinder Singh, who lost his life in the Lakhimpur Kheri violence was performed again on Wednesday, informed Dinesh Chandra, District Magistrate of Bahraich. The post mortem of a farmer, Gurvinder Singh, who lost his life in the  Lakhimpur Kheri violence  was performed again on Wednesday, informed Dinesh Chandra, District Magistrate of Bahraich. While speaking to ANI, Dinesh Chandra, DM of Bahraich, said, “An expert panel of doctors had come from Lucknow to monitor the post mortem, which was recorded in compliance with the orders from Chief Minister’s Office. The panel will give the result. The post-mortem is being done again as the satisfaction of the family is our priority.” He added, “Family of a person who died in Lakhimpur incident had raised doubts over post mortem and requested another one. The state government complied and post mortem was done again to ensure it is done impartially and transparently.” The post mortem was done again ...

  Facebook CEO’s worth down to $120.9 billion, dropping him below Bill Gates to No. 5 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Mark Zuckerberg’s personal wealth has fallen by nearly $7 billion in a few hours, knocking him down a notch on the list of the world’s richest people, after a whistleblower came forward and outages took  Facebook  Inc.’s flagship products offline. A selloff sent the social-media giant’s stock plummeting around 5% on Monday, adding to a drop of about 15% since mid-September. The stock slide on Monday sent Zuckerberg’s worth down to $120.9 billion, dropping him below Bill Gates to No. 5 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He’s lost about $19 billion of wealth since Sept. 13, when he was worth nearly $140 billion, according to the index. On Sept. 13, the Wall Street Journal began publishing a series of stories based on a cache of internal documents, revealing that Facebook knew about a wide range of problems with its products — such as  Instagram’s...

  Appointment of grievance officer does not imply permanent establishment, say officials For digital multinationals such as Google, Facebook and Twitter, appointing grievance officers under new information technology (IT) rules does not imply that they have a “permanent establishment” in India. But if their local office performs business functions and contributes to revenue of the parent firm abroad, it may attract domestic taxes, said two people in the revenue department. This has come in the wake of foreign tech companies and others seeking legal advice on the tax implications of the government’s new IT order. They are required to appoint chief compliance officer, nodal officer and grievance officer from India. These firms fear that such appointments may attract income tax anywhere between 25 per cent and 40 per cent. “Creating any physical presence in the form of a grievance officer or a nodal officer, that too in compliance to government directions, will not create any business...

  The ministry slammed Twitter’s statement on Thursday as an attempt to dictate terms to the world’s largest democracy. After  Twitter  alleged intimidation by police on the issue of ‘manipulated media’ tags, the government on Thursday condemned the statement issued by the microblogging platform as baseless, false and an attempt to defame India. The IT ministry asserted that representatives of social media companies, including Twitter, “are and will always remain safe in India”, and that there is “no threat to their personal safety and security”. The ministry slammed Twitter’s statement on Thursday as an attempt to dictate terms to the world’s largest democracy. Through its actions and deliberate defiance, Twitter seeks to undermine India’s legal system, the ministry added. “Government condemns the unfortunate statement issued by Twitter as totally baseless, false and an attempt to defame India to hide their own follies,” the IT ministry said. Earlier on Thursday, Twitter...

  Requiring messaging apps to trace chats is asking us to keep a fingerprint of every single message: Company. WhatsApp on Tuesday filed a legal challenge against the Indian government, protesting before the Delhi High Court new IT rules that would require messaging services to trace the origin of particular messages. “Requiring messaging apps to “trace” chats is the equivalent of asking us to keep a fingerprint of every single message sent on  WhatsApp , which would break end-to-end encryption and fundamentally undermines people’s right to privacy,” said a WhatsApp spokesperson. “We have consistently joined civil society and experts around the world in opposing requirements that would violate the privacy of our users. In the meantime, we will also continue to engage with the Government of India on practical solutions aimed at keeping people safe, including responding to valid legal requests for the information available to us,” said the spokesperson. Under the recently notifi...

  Facebook has taken down nine networks from six countries in April targeting people with false and deceptive information Facebook  has taken down nine networks from six countries in April targeting people with false and deceptive information. The social network removed 1,565 Facebook accounts, 141 Instagram accounts, 724 Pages and 63 Groups. In Palestine, Facebook removed 447 Facebook accounts, 256 Pages, 17 Groups, and 54 Instagram accounts from Palestine that targeted primarily Palestine, and to a lesser extent Lebanon, Turkey, Syria, and Qatar. “In addition, WhatsApp removed multiple accounts that were part of this activity. We found this activity as part of our internal investigation ahead of the election in Palestine and linked it to Fatah, a political party in Palestine,” Facebook said in a blog post late on Thursday. In Mexico, it removed 162 Facebook accounts, 11 Pages, and seven Instagram accounts from Mexico that targeted the state of San Luis Potosi in that country...

  Delhi High Court sought response of CCI on the appeals of Facebook and WhatsApp against a single judge order dismissing their pleas against a probe ordered into messaging app’s new privacy policy The Delhi High Court on Thursday sought response of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) on the appeals of Facebook and WhatsApp against a single judge order dismissing their pleas against a probe ordered into the messaging app’s new privacy policy. A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jasmeet Singh issued notice to the CCI that had ordered the probe and sought its response by May 21, the next date of hearing. The single judge on April 22 had said though it would have been “prudent” for the CCI to await the outcome of petitions in the Supreme Court and the Delhi HC against  WhatsApp’s  new privacy policy, but not doing so would not make the regulator’s order “perverse” or “wanting of jurisdiction”.

  Microsoft-owned professional networking platform LinkedIn is now facing a massive data leak of 500 million users that is allegedly being sold online While people are yet to digest the huge Facebook data leak of 533 million users (including 6.1 million Indians), Microsoft-owned professional networking platform LinkedIn is now facing a massive data leak of 500 million users that is allegedly being sold online. An archive with data purportedly scraped from 500 million LinkedIn profiles has been put for sale on a popular hacker forum, with another 2 million records leaked as a proof-of-concept sample by people behind the hack. “The four leaked files contain information about the LinkedIn users whose data has been allegedly scraped by the threat actor, including their full names, email addresses, phone numbers, workplace information, and more,” reports CyberNews. The leaked data up on sale includes LinkedIn IDs, full names, email addresses, phone numbers, genders, links to LinkedIn pr...

Social commerce opportunity in India is pegged at $16-20 billion by 2025 Social commerce platform Meesho, the first Indian startup to get Facebook investment in the form of an equity stake, said Monday it has raised $300 million in a new round of funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2, valuing the firm at $2.1 billion. The latest funding round saw participation from its existing investors Prosus Ventures, Facebook, Shunwei Capital, Venture Highway and Knollwood Investment. Social commerce, or buying and selling directly through a social media platform like  Facebook , WhatsApp, Instagram or Twitter, is expected to grow in the next few years. According to a joint report by consulting firm Bain & Co and venture capital firm Sequoia Capital last year, social commerce opportunity in India is pegged at $16-20 billion by 2025. That’s compared to around $2 billion last year. Meesho will use the new fund raise to strengthen its talent pool across verticals: technology, product, and busi...

  Facebook has announced new measures to prevent its interest-based forums called Groups from spreading harmful content Facebook  has announced new measures to prevent its interest-based forums called Groups from spreading harmful content, like hate speech and misinformation. The measures come after the social networking platform faced criticism for its groups being linked to protests that led up to the Capitol riot in the US earlier this year. “We know we have a greater responsibility when we are amplifying or recommending content,” Tom Alison, Vice President of Engineering at Facebook, wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. These new changes will roll out globally over the coming months, Facebook said. The social networking giant said that when a group starts to violate its rules, it will now start showing them lower in recommendations, which means it is less likely that people will discover them. This is similar to its approach in News Feed, where the platform shows lower quali...

  Twitter has announced to let people use security keys as the only authentication method soon, adding that the micro-blogging platform will allow multiple security keys per account instead of just one Twitter  has announced to let people use security keys as the only authentication method soon, adding that the micro-blogging platform will allow multiple security keys per account instead of just one. Currently, Twitter users can use a security key to sign in and also need an authenticator app or SMS code as another 2FA (two-factor authentication) method.”Secure your account (and that alt) with multiple security keys. Now you can enroll and log in with more than one physical key on both mobile and web,” the company said in a tweet late on Monday.”And coming soon: the option to add and use security keys as your only authentication method, without any other methods turned on,” it added. Security keys are physical keys that connect to your computer using USB or Bluetooth. There ar...

  Snapchat on Tuesday launched its new entertainment platform ‘Spotlight’ for user-generated content in India Photo-messaging app Snapchat on Tuesday launched its new entertainment platform ‘Spotlight’ for user-generated content in India. According to the company, Spotlight surfaces the most entertaining snaps from the  Snapchat  community all in one place and will become tailored to each Snapchatter over time, based on their preferences and favourites. With over 5 billion snaps created each day, Spotlight aims to empower the Snapchat community to express themselves and reach a larger audience in a new way. Spotlight has been designed to entertain the Snapchat community while living up to the snaps’ values, with their wellbeing as a top priority. Spotlight content is moderated and doesn’t allow for public comments. Snaps submitted to Spotlight must respect the content guidelines to receive distribution. Snap’s $1m a day programme will also be available in India, celebrati...

  News Corp said on Monday it had reached a three-year agreement to provide Facebook Inc users access to news in Australia. (Reuters) – News Corp said on Monday it had reached a three-year agreement to provide  Facebook  Inc users access to news in Australia. Last month, Australia’s parliament passed a law that requires Alphabet Inc’s Google and Facebook Inc to pay media companies for content on their platforms, after robust negotiations in which Facebook blocked all news content in the 13th-largest economy. The agreement announced on Monday involves News Corp’s The Australian national newspaper, and metropolitan papers such as The Daily Telegraph in New South Wales. Sky News Australia has also reached a new agreement with Facebook, News Corp said. The three-year deal follows an agreement reached in October, 2019 in which News Corp publications in the United States receive payments in exchange for access to additional stories it would provide for Facebook News.

The companies are part of four consortia preparing to apply for licenses to operate retail payments and settlement systems in the country Technology giants Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Google and credit-card providers Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. are among those vying for unprecedented access to India’s burgeoning digital retail payments market. The companies are part of four consortia preparing to apply for licenses to operate retail payments and settlement systems in the country, people familiar with the matter said. More companies could band together before a March 31 application deadline. In a market where cash is still king, digital payments are quickly gaining ground as India’s 1.3 billion people are starting to embrace online shopping and services such as online gaming and streaming. With Credit Suisse Group AG predicting $1 trillion in online payments in India in 2023, the companies chosen to enable such transactions stand to reap lucrative commissions. “India’s mobile d...

  French cybersecurity says on Twitter that the Indian-made app was leaking email and other details about users Koo, the India-made response to Twitter, has denied a French cybersecurity researcher’s allegation that the app was leaking user data. Robert Baptiste, who goes by the pseudonym Elliot Alderson on Twitter, said late Wednesday night: “You asked so I did it. I spent 30 min on this new Koo app. The app is leaking of the personal data of his users: email, dob, name, marital status, gender.” Aprameya Radhakrishna, the co-founder of Koo, wrote on Twitter to deny the statement. “Some news about data leaking being spoken about unnecessarily. Please read this: The data visible is something that the user has voluntarily shown on their profile of Koo. It cannot be termed a data leak. If you visit a user profile you can see it anyway,” he said. Baptiste, in response, tweeted that Radhakrishna’s defence was “a lie”. He posted a screenshot of a Koo app user, claiming date of birth, mar...

  The social network said in a statement late on Monday that the move is taken after consultations with leading health organisations, including the WHO Facebook has announced to expand its efforts to remove false claims on its own platform and Instagram about Covid-19 and its vaccines. The expanded list of false Covid-19 and vaccine-related claims that will be removed include: Covid-19 is man-made; vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease they were created to protect against; it’s safer to get a disease than to get its vaccine and vaccines are dangerous, toxic, or cause autism, among others. The social network said in a statement late on Monday that the move is taken after consultations with leading health organisations, including the WHO. Starting this week in the US, Facebook will feature links in the  Covid-19  Information Center to local ministry of health websites to help people understand whether they’re eligible to get vaccinated and how to do so. “And ...

  In a quarterly earnings call with analysts on Wednesday, Zuckerberg said that the company has moved the date of this update back to give everyone time to understand what the update means. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has defended the upcoming WhatsApp privacy policy that has witnessed a massive backlash in India, saying that the update does not change the privacy of anyone’s messages with friends and family. The WhatsApp policy has now been put on hold till May 15. It aims to share commercial user data with parent Facebook. The Indian government has also written a letter to WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart to withdraw the policy. In a quarterly earnings call with analysts on Wednesday, Zuckerberg said that the company has moved the date of this update back to give everyone time to understand what the update means. “All of these messages are end-to-end encrypted, which means we can’t see or hear what you say and we never will, unless the person that you message chooses to share it and b...

  Companies like Amazon.com Inc, Apple Inc. or Alphabet Inc.’s Google could face fines of as much as 10 per cent of their revenue US and other major tech platforms that treat their own services more favorably, at the expense of rivals, could be forced to sell businesses and pay billion-dollar fines under strict rules unveiled by the European Union. Under the EU’s new Digital Markets Act, companies deemed to be so-called “gatekeepers” won’t be allowed to rank their offerings above rivals on their own platforms, or use competitors’ data to compete with them, according to the new regulation released on Tuesday. Companies like Amazon.com Inc, Apple Inc. or Alphabet Inc.’s Google could face fines of as much as 10 per cent of their revenue in Europe if they don’t comply, while a company that has repeatedly breached the rules could face orders to divest businesses, confirming a Bloomberg report on Monday. Gatekeepers will also need to inform regulators about smaller acquisitions that woul...