Social

WhatsApp is working on a feature that will let group admins delete messages for everyone, as per a beta update for WhatsApp for Android. This ability of admins will essentially help them keep the group better moderated. It is being rolled out to a handful of testers. The second feature that the instant-messaging app is

Sandeep Ravindranath, an Indian filmmaker, posted his latest work to YouTube in May. The video, a nine-minute fictional drama with no dialogue titled Anthem for Kashmir, depicts a young political activist on the lam from authorities. Indian viewers likely picked up on its numerous references to alleged extrajudicial murders in the heavily militarised province, which

Instagram will pause features that users have campaigned against and complained make the social network too much like TikTok, according to a report in the Platformer tech newsletter Thursday. Celebrity sisters Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner were some of the most vocal users to have posted messages on social media this week calling for the

Facebook is letting violent hate speech slip through its controls in Kenya as it has in other countries, according to a new report from the nonprofit groups Global Witness and Foxglove. It is the third such test of Facebook’s ability to detect hateful language — either via artificial intelligence or human moderators — that the

Meta Platforms says it will no longer pay US news organisations to have their material appear in Facebook’s News Tab as it reallocates resources in the face of the economic downturn and changing user behavior. The company said Thursday that most people “do not come to Facebook for news, and as a business it doesn’t

Elon Musk countersued Twitter on Friday, escalating his legal fight against the social media company over his bid to walk away from the $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3.5 lakh crore) purchase, although the lawsuit was filed confidentially. While the 164-page document was not publicly available, under court rules a redacted version could soon be made public.

Kenya’s ethnic cohesion watchdog has given Meta’s Facebook seven days to tackle hate speech and incitement on the platform relating to next month’s election, failing which its operations will be suspended. East Africa’s biggest economy is in the throes of campaigning ahead of presidential, legislative and local authorities elections on August 9. Advocacy group Global Witness

Indonesia has blocked search engine website Yahoo, payments firm Paypal, and several gaming websites due to failure to comply with licensing rules, an official said on Saturday, sparking a backlash on social media. Registration is required under rules released in late November 2020 and will give authorities broad powers to compel platforms to disclose data

Twitter warned Thursday that governments around the globe are asking the company to remove content or snoop on private details of user accounts at an alarming rate. The social media company revealed in a new report that it fielded a record number of legal demands — nearly 60,000 during a six-month period last year —-

India made the highest number of legal demands globally to remove content posted by verified journalists and news outlets on Twitter during July-December 2021, the microblogging platform said. In its latest transparency report, [Twitter](https://gadgets360.com/tags/twitter) said India was only behind the US in seeking Twitter account information, accounting for 19 percent of global information requests. It

Russian regulators have fined chat service WhatsApp and Snapchat for failing to store Russian users’ data on local servers, part of government efforts to control online activity. A Moscow court on Thursday imposed an 18 million ruble (roughly Rs. 2,40,00,00) fine on chat service WhatsApp and a 1 million ruble penalty on disappearing message platform

A bipartisan group of three US senators urged Meta’s Facebook, Twitter and Telegram to do a better job of stopping Russian efforts to spread Spanish-language disinformation about the invasion of Ukraine. Senators Bob Menendez, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent the letters, dated Wednesday, along with Senators Tim Kaine, also a Democrat, and

Twitter has been spotted working on a new Status feature by a few users in the US and Australia. The new feature, which is currently under development, allows Twitter users to assign one of several predetermined labels to their tweets. Twitter confirmed to a publication that the company is testing the feature on the microblogging

Twitter does not object to a proposal by Elon Musk to start on October 17 a trial over Musk’s bid to walk away from his $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,37,465 crore) acquisition deal but the social media company wants a commitment to complete the trial in five days, Twitter said in a court filing on

Twitter on Tuesday urged shareholders to endorse the $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,51,450 crore) deal Elon Musk made to buy the online podium, setting a vote on the merger for September 13. The firm is locked in a legal battle with the mercurial Tesla boss over his effort to walk away from the agreement, and a judge

Elon Musk asked a judge to schedule a five-day trial beginning October 17, not October 10 as requested by Twitter, to resolve his bid to walk away from his $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,51,540 crore) deal to acquire the social media platform, according to a court filing on Tuesday. A lawyer for Musk, the world’s richest person,

Instagram head Adam Mosseri on Tuesday responded to criticism of the platform’s new TikTok-style design for videos, saying that the layout was “not yet good,” and the company would have to “get it to a good place if we’re going to ship it” to all Instagram users. The image and video sharing service, which has

With the rising popularity of social media platforms, businesses have also learnt to tap into the massive reach that these websites and applications offer. Now, research suggests that brands are using TikTok users to promote their unhealthy food and beverages while turning them into brand ambassadors. The researchers concluded, after analysing the video content posted on

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) Monday told the Delhi High Court that WhatsApp’s updated privacy policy of 2021 has not been withdrawn and its probe concerning the policy should be allowed to proceed. The CCI also said the scope of its inquiry has no overlap with the issue of an alleged infringement of user

Big tech companies agreed on Monday to reduce harmful online content in New Zealand, making a move that critics said dodged the alternative of government regulation. Meta Platforms, Alphabet-owned Google, TikTok, Amazon and Twitter had signed a code of practice, said Netsafe, a government-funded internet-safety group. The companies would follow the code as self-regulation, Netsafe