Heena Sharma Blog

  Facebook Pay is arriving on other online shopping platforms , starting with e-commerce platform Shopify, that will help businesses ensure a seamless checkout experience for their customers on their own websites. Currently, the Facebook Pay system is available for users on its main platform, as well as on WhatsApp and Instagram. "Starting this August, businesses in the US who use participating platforms will have the ability to enable Facebook Pay as a payment option directly on their websites, giving their customers the ability to speed through checkout without having to re-enter their payment information," the company said in a statement on Thursday. "We're starting the rollout with Shopify merchants and expect to expand availability with more platforms and payment service providers over time," the social network added. People already use Facebook Pay to send money, shop, donate and more, across Facebook apps and services. Read More

  Facebook is on a huge monetisation drive and now, Instagram users globally will see ads in short-video feature Reels from Friday. The ads will be full-screen, looping and up to 30-second long and will appear in between other clips, reports The Verge. Ads will be identified by a small "sponsored" tag below the name of the advertiser's account. Instagram started testing ads in India, Australia, Brazil and Germany in April and is now rolling those out globally. Ads can run up to 30 seconds and users can interact with them the way they would with organic posts (including skipping them altogether). Ads can also include "shop now" buttons, according to screenshots shared by the company. Facebook is also experimenting with a new ad format for Stories called sticker ads. Read More

  The deadline to comply with the new legal rules meant for big social media platforms , which were issued by the government three months ago, is ending on Tuesday, threatening the operations of the likes of Twitter in India. According to top official sources, social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and others, which were required to abide by the rules notified in the gazette of India on February 25 under Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules, 2021, have failed to comply on many accounts till date. The government's rules will come into effect from May 26. "If social media companies do not obey the rules, they may lose their status and protections as intermediaries and may become liable for criminal action as per the existing laws of India," top official sources said. Except one Indian social media company, Koo, sources said that none of the top social media intermediaries have appointed a resident grievance officer, a chief complianc...

  Facebook-owned Instagram has announced to let users add up to four pronouns to their profiles, which they can then display publicly or only to their followers. It's another way to express yourself on Instagram and the feature is now available in a few countries today with plans for more. The company, however, did not specify which countries have this feature at the moment. "Now you can add pronouns to your profile with a new field. It's another way to express yourself on Instagram and we've seen a lot of people adding pronouns already, so hopefully this makes it even easier. Available in a few countries today with plans for more," said Vishal Shah, VP of Product at Instagram. People can fill out a form to have a pronoun added, if it's not already available, or just add it to their bio. The news comes at a time when a coalition of 44 US Attorneys General has signed a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg urging Facebook not to launch "Instagram...

  After the seven-day limit, WhatsApp is now testing and developing a Disappearing Message feature with the 24-hour option for personal and group chats. According to WABetaInfo, a website that tracks WhatsApp in Beta, revealed that the disappearing message feature will be available in a future update. "WhatsApp won't replace the 7 days’ option, but 24 hours will be an addition," the report said on Sunday. WhatsApp will soon include the 24-hour option in the section where people are used to enable/disable disappearing messages for personal and group chats. When the user chooses "24 hours", all messages sent/received after this change expire after 24 hours, so they will disappear from the chat. "The feature is under development and it will be available in a future update for iOS, Android and Web/Desktop," the report mentioned. Read More

  Facebook-owned WhatsApp is reportedly testing the ability to easily migrate chat history between an iPhone and an Android device. According to a 9To5Google report, this feature is part of a strategic change in the WhatsApp app. The company had been exploring the possibility of using WhatsApp on multiple devices at the same time and the ability to migrate chat history between iOS and Android is part of this effort, the report said. When the user tries to link a device having a different operative system to his WhatsApp account, it's always needed to update to the latest WhatsApp update available on the App Store or Test Flight, in order to avoid any compatibility error with the Android version, reports WABetaInfo. The ability to use the same WhatsApp account on multiple devices is one of the most requested features by users, as well as an iPad version of Instagram. Read More

  A Facebook internal study has found that a small group of users is actually sowing major doubts about the Covid-19 vaccines , discouraging people from taking the vital jab. The findings showed that just 10 out of the 638 population segments contained 50 per cent of all vaccine hesitancy content on the platform. In the population segment with the most vaccine hesitancy, just 111 users contributed half of all vaccine hesitant content, according to a report in The Washington Post. The Facebook study has also found a QAnon connection behind the campaign to malign the use of coronavirus vaccines and spreading "vaccine hesitancy". QAnon is a far-right conspiracy theory group in the US. The research is a large-scale attempt to understand the spread of ideas that contribute to vaccine hesitancy, "or the act of delaying or refusing a vaccination despite its availability, on social media -- a primary source of health information for millions of people," the repor...

  India announced new rules on Thursday to regulate content on social media, making Facebook, WhatsApp and others more accountable to legal requests for swift removal of posts and sharing details on the originators of messages. The rules -- part of an effort by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's nationalist government to tighten the leash on Big Tech -- come after Twitter recently ignored government orders to drop content related to farmers' protests. India is the largest market by users for both Facebook and its messenger service WhatsApp. The new rules issued by the government, called the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code, will be legally enforceable. They will require big social media companies to set up a grievance redressal mechanism and within three months appoint new executives to coordinate with law enforcement. Social media firms should be "more responsible and accountable," Ravi Shankar Prasad, the minister for information technolo...

  Australia’s government said Google and Facebook Inc . are nearing agreements to pay domestic media companies for news, in a sign a regulatory standoff may be softening. Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg held talks with Facebook Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and Google counterpart Sundar Pichai over the weekend. “We’re very close to some very significant commercial deals,” Frydenberg told the Australian Broadcasting on Monday, according to a transcript sent by his office. “We have made great progress.” Alphabet Inc-owned Google and Facebook oppose planned Australian legislation forcing them to pay media companies for news, and Google has threatened to shut down its search engine if the law is enacted. Parliament will consider the legislation from this week, giving the internet giants an incentive to agree compensation terms for news companies before the law is passed. Facebook declined to comment on any specific talks. “We’ve been engaging with the Australian g...

  Facebook has removed 26.9 million pieces of hate speech content in the fourth quarter of 2020 -- up from 22.1 million in Q3 and the company gives credit to improvements in its automated systems that catch and purge such comments. The social network also blocked 6.4 million pieces of organised hate content in the October-December period from its main platform, up from 4 million in Q3. Instagram also saw significant jumps in hate speech, bullying and self-harm removals, according to the company's 'Community Standards Enforcement Report'. Facebook took down 6.3 million pieces of bullying and harassment content from its platform in the fourth quarter of 2020 -- up from 3.5 million in Q3. "Last quarter, we shared the prevalence of hate speech on Facebook for the first time to show the percentage of times people see this type of content on our platform. This quarter, hate speech prevalence dropped, seven to eight views of hate speech for every 10,000 views of con...

  Known to clone or lift ideas from its competitors to stay ahead in the game, Facebook is now reportedly working on to build its own social audio app like Clubhouse. According to a report in The New York Times, the social network has asked employees to create a similar product like Clubhouse. The product is "in its earliest stages of development" and the "project's code name could change". "We've been connecting people through audio and video technologies for many years and are always exploring new ways to improve that experience for people," A Facebook spokesperson was quoted as saying in the report on Wednesday. The news comes after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg joined Clubhouse last week and participated in chat about the future of augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR). Read More

  The Centre on Monday told the Delhi High Court that WhatsApp was treating Indian users differently from its European ones with regard to opting out of its new privacy policy, and this was a matter of concern for the government which is looking into it. The central government told the high court that it was also a matter of concern that Indian users were being "unilaterally" subjected to the change in privacy policy by social networking platform WhatsApp. The submissions were made before Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva by Additional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma during hearing of a petition by a lawyer against the new privacypolicy of the social networking platform owned by Facebook. Duringthe hearing, Sharma told the court that by not giving Indian users the optionto opt out of sharing their data with other companies of Facebook, WhatsApp prima facie appears to be treating users with an "all or nothing approach". Read More

  A so-called configuration change at the back-end forced some Facebook users to log out of their accounts unexpectedly, according to the social network. The problem started on Friday and went on till Saturday for Facebook users, before it got resolved. "On January 22, a configuration change caused some people to be logged out of their Facebook accounts. We investigated the issue and fixed it. We're sorry for the inconvenience," Facebook said in a statement on Saturday. The affected Facebook users on Reddit reported they were receiving "sign in" prompts from their Facebook apps, but they had not signed out. "We're looking into reports of people being logged out and having to login again to access their Facebook accounts. We're working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience," Facebook tweeted. Read More

  As the debate rages over new WhatsApp data sharing policy , another Facebook family product called Messenger does not offer any end-to-end protection and is more prone to data breach, a security expert has claimed, adding that Messenger users should opt for safer apps first. According to cybersecurity specialist Zak Doffman, we should stop using Facebook Messenger as there is no proper protection of our messages, reports Forbes. WhatsApp emphasises that it cannot see your private messages, nor listen to your calls, and neither can Facebook. However, according to Doffman, if you are a Messenger user, you do not have the same data encryption. "In reality, the WhatsApp debacle has distracted attention away from just how bad Messenger's invasion of your privacy is. There is no justification for it," he wrote in the article. Read More  

WhatsApp on Tuesday said its latest policy update does not affect the privacy of messages as the Facebook-owned company sought to address concerns around security of user data on the platform. In a blogpost, WhatsApp emphasised that it does not share users' contact lists or data of groups with Facebook for ads purposes, and that neither WhatsApp nor Facebook can read messages or hear calls between users on WhatsApp. Last week, WhatsApp had informed users of an update in its Terms of Service and privacy policy regarding how it processes user data and partners with Facebook to offer integrations across the social media giant's products. It also stated that users will have to agree to the new terms and policy by February 8, 2021, in order to continue using WhatsApp's service. This kickstarted a spate of conversations and memes on the internet over WhatsApp's alleged sharing of user information with Facebook, and many users have started shifting to rival platforms like Te...

  Millions of Indian users received an in-app notification from WhatsApp as part of an upcoming global roll-out for over 2 billion users, asking them to either accept the changes in its Terms of Service and privacy policy by February 8 or their accounts will be deleted. The in-app notification did not elicit much details but clicking on the links clearly mentioned the key changes in how WhatsApp will collect and process users' information going forward, and the partnership with Facebook, its parent company, as part of a larger unification drive between the family of apps. "WhatsApp must receive or collect some information to operate, provide, improve, understand, customise, support, and market our Services, including when you install, access, or use our Services," the updated policy read. "Businesses you interact with using our Services may provide us with information about their interactions with you. We require each of these businesses to act in accordance w...

  WhatsApp on Wednesday said it expects to facilitate the purchase of "affordable sachet-sized" health insurance through its platform by the end of the year as part of its efforts to provide users in India with greater access to financial solutions. The Facebook-owned company noted that its 'Payments' feature is now available to users across the country (currently up to 20 million users) with support from banking partners - State Bank of India, HDFC, ICICI and Axis Bank. "WhatsApp is deeply committed to India with over 400 million active users, this is our largest market. Our primary focus will always be to provide the most simple, reliable, private and secure experience for people to connect with each other. However, in India we are also building on four other pillars," WhatsApp India Head Abhijit Bose said at the Facebook Fuel for India 2020 event. Read More

  In its bid to fight the spread of Covid-19 related misinformation on its platform, Facebook will now send notifications directly to users who like, share, or comment on such posts. According to a report from Fast Company, the social network is changing how it reaches people who have encountered misinformation on its platform.   "The company will now send notifications to anyone who has liked, commented, or shared a piece of Covid-19 misinformation that's been taken down for violating the platform's terms of service," the report said on Tuesday. The notification will read: "We removed a post you liked that had false, potentially harmful information about Covid-19." The company will then connect users with trustworthy sources in effort to correct the record. Read More  

  Taking on Chinese short-video making platform TikTok once again, Facebooks has launched a new iOS app called Collab for making and mixing music with friends in the pandemic. The experimental app for making collaborative music videos is now available on the App Store in the US. Part of the Facebook's app-focused New Product Experimentation (NPE) team, the app allows users to create short-form music videos by combining up to three independent videos of 15-second timeframe. According to a report in TechCrunch, the users can either create a collab by playing along with someone else's video or "just swipe on one of the three rows to choose a different video to slot into the mix from those available". "As you discover musicians you like to play along with, you can favourite them in the app to be notified when they post new clips. This also personalises the main feed," the report said late on Monday. Read More    

  Amid growing misinformation on social media, Facebook plans to remove posts with what they consider to be false information or conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines . The company said in a statement on Thursday, in coming weeks they will start removing false claims about vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts. "Given the recent news that COVID-19 vaccines will soon be rolling out around the world, over the coming weeks we will start removing false claims about these vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts on Facebook and Instagram," the release said. "For example, we will remove false claims that COVID-19 vaccines contain microchips, or anything else that isn't on the official vaccine ingredient list," the release added. Read More