Budget 2018-19

  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...

  38-year-old Zhang Yiming, is among the world’s richest people — a distinction that lately has carried increased risks in China Just last year, the world’s most valuable startup, ByteDance Ltd., was being squeezed from all sides. The Trump administration wanted the Chinese firm, which owns the ubiquitous TikTok video-sharing platform, to get rid of assets. Beijing was cracking down on tech businesses, and India had blacklisted some of its social-media apps. For all the obstacles, ByteDance kept growing. Now its founder, 38-year-old Zhang Yiming, is among the world’s richest people — a distinction that lately has carried increased risks in China. Shares of the company trade in the private market at a valuation of more than $250 billion, people familiar with the dealings have said. At that level, Zhang, who owns about a quarter of  ByteDance , could be worth more than $60 billion, placing him alongside Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s Pony Ma, bottled-water king Zhong Shanshan and membe...

  With more than 58 million installs in March, TikTok became the most downloaded non-gaming app worldwide last month, said a new report With more than 58 million installs in March,  TikTok  became the most downloaded non-gaming app worldwide last month, said a new report. TikTok was followed by Facebook which became the second most installed non-gaming app worldwide for March with more than 56 million installs, showed the data from app analytics firm Sensor Tower. Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger – all of which are part of the Facebook family of apps – rounded out the top five most installed non-gaming apps worldwide for the month. The countries with the largest number of TikTok installs were from Douyin in China at 11 per cent, followed by the US at 10 per cent, Sensor Tower said. The countries with the largest number of Facebook installs were from India at 25 per cent, followed by the US at 8 per cent. The other apps which made it to the top 10 in the overall list incl...

  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...