Budget 2018-19

  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 ...

  From a Yoga guru to a saint to an accused — Anand Giri’s life has been a roller-coaster ride. From a Yoga guru to a saint to an accused —  Anand Giri ‘s life has been a roller-coaster ride. Now in police custody for allegedly abetting the suicide of his mentor Mahant Narendra Giri, not many are surprised with what has happened to Anand Giri — once termed as a successor to his guru. Mahant Narendra Giri had brought Anand from a Haridwar Ashram to Prayagraj’s Baghambari Mutt when he was 12 years old. Anand, now 38, hails from Bhilwara in Rajasthan. He was formally inducted into the Shri Panchayati Akhara Niranjani, the ancient monastic order to which Narendra Giri belonged, in 2007. Known as ‘Chhote Maharaj’ at the famous Bade Hanuman temple in Prayagraj before he had a dispute with his Mahant Narendra Giri over various issues, including property. Over the period of time, he cultivated his own following through yoga. Anand Giri claims to have formally studied Sanskrit,  A...

  According to rules, significant social media intermediaries have to notify the details of their Indian-based chief compliance officer, nodal contact person and grievance officer The Minister for Electronics and Information Technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad, said Wednesday that Twitter has “failed to comply” with the new IT Rules that came into effect from May 26. Responding to reports about Twitter losing its safe harbour provision under its intermediary status in India, Prasad tweeted, “There are numerous queries arising as to whether Twitter is entitled to safe harbour provision. However, the simple fact of the matter is that Twitter has failed to comply with the intermediary guidelines that came into effect from May 26.” He added that Twitter was given multiple opportunities to comply with the new rules, but it failed to do so. MeitY had said on May 28 that major social media intermediaries have shared the details as required under the new IT Rules, 2021, except  Twitter , ...

  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...

  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...

  Facebook Inc’s Instagram is rolling out a feature to prevent users from viewing possibly abusive messages by filtering offensive words, phrases and emojis on the photo-sharing app (Reuters) – Facebook Inc’s Instagram is rolling out a feature to prevent users from viewing possibly abusive messages by filtering offensive words, phrases and emojis on the photo-sharing app. The company said on Wednesday that along with the filter option for abusive direct messages, it will also make it harder for people blocked by users to circumvent and contact them through new accounts. Instagram has been pushing on its efforts to tackle hate speech and online abuse on its platform, which is more popular than Facebook’s main app among teens and young adults. The filter, which can be activated on  Instagram  in privacy settings, can be customized by users to include words, phrases and emojis that they wish to block or avoid receiving in their message requests. Users can use their discretio...

  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...

  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...

  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...

  Twitter removed former Malaysian PM Mahathir Mohamad’s tweet, for violating its rules banning the glorification of violence, shortly after a violent knife attack in Nice, which left three people dead Social networking platform Twitter on Thursday removed former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s tweet, for violating its rules banning the glorification of violence, shortly after a violent knife attack in Nice, which left three people dead. In a series of tweets, Mahathir Mohamad had said that “Muslims have a right to be angry and kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past”. It sparked an angry outburst on social media with many users calling out the former Malaysian prime minister. Cedric O, France’s Secretary for Digital Sector also condemned the post and urged Twitter to suspend the account of the former Malaysian prime minister and said in a tweet: “If not, Twitter would be an accomplice to a formal call for murder.” “I just spoke with the Managing Di...

  Facebook says it will ban ads on its platform that discourage vaccinations with an exception carved out for advocacy ads about government vaccine policies Facebook says it will ban ads on its platform that discourage vaccinations with an exception carved out for advocacy ads about government vaccine policies. The company already bans ads about vaccine hoaxes,” such as the false idea that vaccinations cause autism. The latest policy expands the ban to ads that discourage vaccines for any reason. But  Facebook  also said Tuesday that ads that advocate for or against legislation or government policies around vaccines including a COVID-19 vaccine will still be allowed. These ads will still have to be approved by the company as political advertisements and include a paid for by label on who is funding them. And unpaid posts by people or groups that discourage vaccinations will also still be allowed the new policy only includes paid advertisements. The social network said it ...