Social Media

Twitter Verified account follows no one, removes 420,000 legacy accounts

Twitter had earlier warned of winding down all the legacy verified accounts from April 1 and even removing the checkmarks for those who still had them but were not paying for Twitter Blue subscription

TikTok fined $15.9 million by UK watchdog over misuse of kids' data

Britain's privacy watchdog hit TikTok with a multimillion-dollar penalty on Tuesday for a slew of data protection breaches, including misusing children's data. The Information Commissioner's Office said it issued a fine of 12.7 million pounds (USD 15.9 million) to the short-video sharing app, which is wildly popular with young people. It's the latest example of tighter scrutiny that TikTok and its parent, Chinese technology company ByteDance, are facing in the West, where governments are increasingly concerned about risks that the app poses to data privacy and cybersecurity. The British watchdog said TikTok allowed as many as 1.4 million children in the UK under 13 to use the app in 2020, despite the platform's own rules prohibiting children that young from setting up accounts. TikTok didn't adequately identify and remove children under 13 from the platform, the watchdog said. And even though it knew younger children were using its platform, TikTok failed to get consent from their

Twitter's publisher-focused alternative 'Post' now open for public

As Elon Musk plays around with Twitter which has frustrated its users, a Twitter alternative called Post that allows publishers to engage with people and monetise their readership

Indian dating apps swipe right for Bharat as relationship landscape changes

The stakes are rising. Indian consumers spent close to $10 million in 2022 on dating and friendship apps

ByteDance surges 30% to match Tencent's $80 bn sales after TikTok boom

That pace of expansion underscores the resilience of ByteDance's business at a time Washington is threatening to join India in banning TikTok

WhatsApp improves readability of messages in community announcement groups

With the new interface, users will be able to read messages easily because the text will be displayed on a wider line

Not Obama or Bieber, Elon Musk is now the most followed person on Twitter

Twitter has approximately 450 million monthly active users. Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, is followed by 30% of total Twitter users

Centre directed to block over 30,000 web links since 2018: Vaishnaw

The government issued directions to block 30,310 web links, including social media links, accounts, channels, pages, apps, web pages, websites etc since 2018, Parliament was informed on Wednesday. Electronics and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Wednesday informed the Lok Sabha that the committee constituted under IT Rules examined a total of 41,172 URLs (Uniform Resource Locators) that were received from nodal officers in various ministries, departments and states for blocking under section 69A of IT Act 2000. "The Government follows due process as envisaged in the Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking for Access of Information for Public) Rules, 2009. From 2018 till 15th March 2023, blocking directions have been given for 30,310 URLs. These include social media URLs, accounts, channels, pages, apps, web pages, websites etc," Vaishnaw said in a written statement. He said that section 69A of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, provides power to the ...

Here's how Utah's social media law could curb kids' access to social media

The state of Utah in the USA signed two bills last week restricting the usage of social media for minors. In the proposed Digital India Act, India's IT ministry hinted at similar rules

Twitter says its source code leaked on GitHub, blames ex-employees

Twitter also launched an internal investigation to determine who was responsible for the leak. So far, the investigation has concluded that the person involved left the organisation last year

Jack Dorsey's wealth tumbles $526 million after Hindenburg's latest report

Dorsey's fortune plunged by $526 million on Thursday, his worst single-day decline since May. He's now worth $4.4 billion after the 11% drop, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index

Have a Twitter blue tick? Buy a Blue subscription or lose it from April 1

Twitter Blue: Elon Musk has repeatedly said that the company will remove all blue checks as it starts monetising its platform by charging users

New Whatsapp app allows group calls to up to 32 people from your desktop

The social media company aims to position WhatsApp as a platform with a fully end-to-end encrypted messaging experience that allows cross-platform communication

TikTok CEO Shou Chew set to enter a Washington fight he can't win

The mobile app's 150 million users in the US and the strength of its content-recommendation engine mean any infraction is viewed as a potential societal threat

Instagram will now put ads in user search results to reach people

Meta-owned Instagram has announced it will put ads into the platform's search results to reach people actively searching for businesses, products and content

Earn Rs 100,000 per month: StockGro hiring for Chief Meme Officer

The work can be done from anywhere and would involve creating "snackable memes" that talk about GenZ and millennials

Twitter to soon increase long-form tweets to 10,000 characters: Elon Musk

"And making it much easier for writers to charge subscription fees for premium content"

Social media platform Mastodon hits over 10mn registered accounts

Mastodon had jumped from approximately 300K monthly active users to 2.5 million, which included journalists, political figures, writers, actors and organisations, between last October and November

Twitter's two-factor authentication moves behind paywall effective today

However, users can continue to access the security feature, using a hardware security key or a third-party authentication app

Non-Twitter Blue users now have last chance to switch away from SMS 2FA

Twitter had confirmed that it will charge Rs 650 per month for its Blue service with verification on the web and Rs 900 on Android and iOS mobile devices in India