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News updates: Microsoft says about 8.5 million of its devices affected by CrowdStrike-related outage

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Snapchat introduces some safety enhancement tools in its AI chatbot

As a result of learning, the company has shared an update on some of the safety enhancements and said to launch a few tools to keep the AI responses in check

Twitter has not revoked legacy verified blue tick from most accounts

Microblogging platform Twitter has so far not revoked the legacy verified blue tick from most of the accounts that have not paid for subscribing 'Twitter Blue' service. However, some of the organisations in India shared that they have paid for the blue service to maintain the brand reputation on the microblogging platform. Twitter also replaced the blue bird logo with that of Doge meme, a logo used for the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, on its web home page. The value of Dogecoin cryptocurrency rallied after the move. Twitter's owner Musk has invested in Dogecoin. Twitter last month shared that it will begin winding down its legacy verified programme and removing legacy verified checkmarks from April 1. The social media platform has removed the verification batch from the New York Times account. Several celebrities in Western countries Tweeted that they will not pay for the blue tick. Professionals in India shared mixed views. Media organisation Medianama Founder Nikhil Pahwa, who cont

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

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

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

Twitter's revenue drops amid advertisers' concerns over Elon Musk's antics

From September to October of last year, the top 10 advertisers on Twitter spent $71 million on ads, according to estimates from Pathmatics

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 proprietary source code leak turns into hunt for the perpetrator

Exposing Twitter's internal workings may make the service more vulnerable to hacking attempts

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

Meta Platforms Inc sued by its home county over social media addiction

Issues around social media addiction were highlighted at a Congressional hearing Thursday

WhatsApp rolling out limit polls to only one choice feature on Android

Meta-owned WhatsApp is reportedly rolling out a new feature that will let poll creators limit users to only one choice, which is available for some beta testers on Android

TikTok CEO plans to tell Congress app is safe to use, urge against ban

TikTok's CEO plans to tell Congress that the video-sharing app is committed to user safety, data protection and security, and keeping the platform free from Chinese government influence. Shou Zi Chew is due to answer questions on Thursday from US lawmakers concerned about the social media platform's effects on its young user base and possible national security risks posed by the popular app, which was founded by Chinese entrepreneurs. Chew is sticking to a familiar script as he urges officials against pursuing an all-out ban on TikTok or for the company to be sold off to new owners. TikTok's efforts to ensure the security of its user data, including a USD 1.5 billion project to store the information on Oracle servers in the US and allow outside monitors to inspect its source code, go above and beyond what any of its rivals are doing, according to Chew's prepared remarks released ahead of his appearance before the US House Committee on Energy and Commerce. No other social media ...

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

WhatsApp introduces new features for groups, gives more control to admins

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of WhatsApp parent Meta, introduced the features on his Instagram Broadcast channel

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

All social media platforms have TikTok-like risks, says transparency group

All of these platforms have "force-fed children dangerous and harmful content with predatory algorithms, said the group

Twitter will prioritise replies by people you follow, verified: Musk

Musk has said that the micro-blogging platform will open source all code used for recommending tweets on March 31

Meta rolling out its paid verification in US for Instagram, Facebook users

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced that the company is rolling out its paid subscription plan for Facebook and Instagram to users based in the US

It is duty of Twitter to provide details of users: Govt to K'taka HC

The union government has informed the High Court of Karnataka that being a significant intermediary, micro blogging site Twitter has additional responsibility and it was its duty to provide details of account holders. Additional Solicitor General R Sankarnarayanan who appeared for the central government, gave the examples of dangerous tweets that is going to affect the integrity, sovereignty of India or is going to create a public (dis) order; then naturally we will step in and either we will issue a take down notice or we will say block the account. The ASG cited somebody gives a tweet under the assumed name of Government of Pakistan about India Occupied Kashmir, somebody says (V) Prabhakaran (LTTE leader) is a hero and he is coming back. All this is so dangerous that it is going to incite violence. Twitter approached the HC in June 2022 against the take-down orders issued by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). Twitter claims the government is required