Heena Sharma Blog

  Audio-chat app Clubhouse said on Monday it will launch a monetization feature for its creators on the platform and that it will not receive any payment from it. Starting Monday, all users will be able to send payments through the platform, Clubhouse said. The feature to receive payments will initially be available only to a small test group, and later rolled out to other customers. Users can send payment to Clubhouse creators who have the feature enabled, by tapping a 'Send Money' option. The audio-based social network company said a small card processing fee will be charged by its payment processing partner, Stripe. The San Francisco-based company, whose app lets people gather in audio chatrooms to discuss different topics, requires newcomers to be invited by existing users before they can join. The app saw its global user numbers soar after Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk and Robin hood CEO Vlad Tenev held a surprise discussion on the platform. Read More

  WhatsApp will Thursday roll out voice and video calling from the desktop, making it easier for people to take calls at their convenience. Voice and video calls on WhatsApp Web will also be end-to-end encrypted, ensuring that WhatsApp can’t hear or see them, whether you call from your phone or your computer. "We’re starting with one-to-one calls on the WhatsApp desktop app so we make sure we can give you a reliable and high-quality experience. We will be expanding this feature to include group voice and video calls in the future," the company said in a statement. The Facebook-owned messaging app had been testing this feature for very few users since late last year. In order to make a WhatsApp desktop call, you need to have a Windows 10 64-bit version 1903 and newer or macOS 10.13 and newer. One of the reasons for WhatsApp to roll out this feature is increased calling on the platform due to the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. Read More

  Twitter is planning a new tool to let users automatically block and mute abusive accounts. With the new safety mode, the micro-blogging platform will automatically detect accounts that "might be acting abusive or spammy." The company will limit how those accounts can engage with your content for seven days. During its virtual Analyst Day on Thursday, the company showed a presentation where a slide revealed that the feature will be a toggle in the new safety mode. "Automatically block accounts that appear to break the Twitter Rules, and mute accounts that might be using insults, name-calling, strong language, or hateful remarks," the description read. Currently, not many Twitter users in India are aware of how to report abuse or harassment they face on the open communication platform, opting for the wrong way of posting an abusive photo or tweet and then requesting us to take action. Read More

  Twitter has allowed third-party academic researchers free access to the full history of public conversation via the full-archive search endpoint, which was previously limited to paid premium or enterprise customers. Twitter API was first introduced in 2006 and since then, academic researchers have used data from the public conversation to study topics as diverse as the conversation on Twitter itself. These include state-backed efforts to disrupt the public conversation to floods and climate change, from attitudes and perceptions about COVID-19 to efforts to promote healthy conversation online. "Today, academic researchers are one of the largest groups of people using the Twitter API," the company said in a blog post late on Tuesday. With the new Academic Research product track on the Twitter API, qualified researchers will have access to all data released to date. They will have higher levels of access to the Twitter developer platform for free, including a sign...

  The Delhi High Court on Monday said accepting the new privacy policy of social messaging app WhatsApp was a "voluntary" thing and one can choose not to use or join that platform if one did not agree with its terms and conditions. "It is a private app. Don't join it. It is a voluntary thing, don't accept it. Use some other app," Justice Sanjeev Sachdeva said to the petitioner, a lawyer, who has challenged WhatsApp's new privacy policy which was slated to come into effect in February but has been deferred till May. The court also said that if the terms and conditions of most mobile apps are read, "you would be surprised as to what all you are consenting to". "Even Google maps captures all your data and stores it," the court said. The court further said it could not understand what data would be leaked according to the petitioner and since the issue requires consideration, it will be listed on January 25 due to paucity of time...

  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  

  In a bid to help marketers and creators further grow brand awareness on its platform, YouTube has introduced audio ads -- its first ad format designed to connect brands with audiences in engaged and ambient listening. Audio ads, currently in beta, will help companies efficiently expand reach and grow brand awareness with audio-based creative and the same measurement, audience and brand safety features as video campaigns, the Google-owned platform said on Tuesday. "With music video streaming at an all time high on YouTube -- more than 50 per cent of logged-in viewers who consume music content in a day consume more than 10 minutes of music content -- we're introducing new solutions for your brand to be seen, heard and recognised alongside music content," said Melissa Hsieh Nikolic, Group Product Manager, YouTube Ads. Read More

  In a fresh bid to allow cross-messaging among its family of apps, Facebook has reportedly started merging Instagram and Messenger chats. First spotted by The Verge, the update is for both iOS and Android devices. The update comes with the message: "There's a New Way to Message on Instagram". "Once you hit the update, the regular DM icon in the top right of Instagram is replaced by the Facebook Messenger logo," the report mentioned. Currently, the functionality to message Facebook users from Instagram is not possible. Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 for $19 billion. In another step to integrate its family of apps that are being used by 3.14 billion users globally, Facebook has also integrated Messenger rooms with WhatsApp on the Web. Read More               

Hackers have sold personal data of a whopping 267 million Facebook users for just Rs 41,500 (approximately 500 Euros). The data includes email addresses, names, Facebook IDs, dates of birth and phone numbers. Thankfully, no passwords of the 267 million Facebook users were exposed by the hacker, according to the cyber risk assessment platform Cyble. The Cyble researchers executed the sale and were able to download and verify the data. "At this stage, we are not aware of how the data got leaked at the first instance. It might be due to a leakage in third-party API (Application Programming Interface) or scrapping," the company said in a statement. Read More

Twitter will begin to label and in some cases remove doctored or manipulated photos, audio and videos that are designed to mislead people. The company said on Tuesday that the new rules prohibit sharing synthetic or manipulated material that's likely to cause harm. Material that is manipulated but isn't necessarily harmful may get a warning label. Under the new guidelines, the slowed-down video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in which she appeared to slur her words could get the label if someone tweets it out after the rules go into effect March 5. If it was proven that it also causes harm, Twitter could also remove it. But deciding what might cause harm could be difficult to define, and some material will likely fall into a gray area. "This will be a challenge and we will make errors along the way - we appreciate the patience," Twitter said in a blog post. Read More

Online platforms including Facebook and Alphabet Inc's Google face growing pressure to stop carrying political ads that contain false or misleading claims ahead of the US presidential election. In the United States, the Communications Act prevents broadcast stations from rejecting or censoring ads from candidates for federal office once they have accepted advertising for that political race, although this does not apply to cable networks like CNN, or to social media sites, where leading presidential candidates are spending millions to target voters in the run-up to the November 2020 election. The following is how social media platforms have decided to handle false or misleading claims in political ads: Facebook Facebook exempts politicians from its third-party fact-checking program, allowing them to run ads with false claims. The policy has been attacked by regulators and lawmakers who say it could spread misinformation and cause voter suppression. Critics including...

WhatsApp users in several parts of the world, including in India, on Sunday took to Twitter to report several issues with the mobile messaging platform. Millions of users were unable to share videos, photos and GIFs, audio and stickers and several of those said they were even unable to view WhatsApp Status feature . According to Downdetetector.com, the problem started in the evening around 4 p.m. and alive outage map showed users in India, Europe, Brazil and in Southeast Asia were affected by the outage. "WhatsApp is restoring the service. The server issue should be fixed now," said WABetainfo.com, a fan website that tracks WhatsApp. "2 min silence for the peoples who talked about the updates on last post," tweeted one user. "Stickers can be sent now, the service should be restored completely soon," tweeted another. WhatsApp was yet to notify users about how the problem began. Read More

Facebook-owned Instagram on Saturday introduced three new options to share Boomerang Stories: SlowMo, Echo, and Duo, along with a new few feature to trim their length. "Your Instagram camera gives you ways to express yourself and easily share what you're doing, thinking or feeling with your friends. Boomerang is an iconic part of that, and one of the most beloved camera formats. Instagram is excited to expand on the creativity and give you new ways to use Boomerang to turn everyday moments into something fun and unexpected," the company said in a statement. The new filters are available in the Boomerang composer located in the Instagram Stories camera. With SlowMo, as the name suggests, Boomerang videos are slowed to half their original speed. Echo creates a double vision effect, enhancing Boomerang and Duo, both speeds up and slows down Boomerang, adding a texturized effect. It's also possible to trim and adjust the length of recorded Boomerangs with t...

Ankhi Das, Public Policy Director Facebook India, South and Central Asia, on Friday submitted to a parliamentary panel probing the WhatsApp snooping scandal that the social media platform has an end-to-end encryption and it renders any effort to access the communication between its two users "unlikely from its end", sources said. The parliamentary standing committee on Information Technology headed by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Friday called the cyber security experts to hear their views on the issue of citizens data security and privacy. As per the notice of the meeting, the panel had also called non-official witnesses of the WhatsApp snooping row , including BJP's former organisational secretary Govindacharya, who was represented by his lawyer in the meeting. Representatives of WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, and the officials of Telecom and Union Home Ministry and Delhi chief secretary were also called by the panel, the notice read. WhatsApp...

In an era of technological advancement, where the growth of the digital economy has meant the use of data as a critical means of communication, the Personal Data Protection Bill is proposed to ensure the informational privacy of individuals, and ensuring empowerment, progress and innovation The Personal Data Protection Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday, and referred to a Joint Select Committee (JSC) following a voice vote. Well, according to parliamentary procedure, the Bill could also have been referred to the departmental committee, which in this case, would be the parlimentary standing committee on information technology, headed by Congress leader Shashi Tharoor. However, it didn’t happen that way and Tharoor objected to the proposal of sending the Bill to the JSC and also wrote to Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla to register "strong concerns" with Prasad's proposal. He said the Committee on IT has a mandate and a parliamentary responsibility to ...

Facebook started testing a tool on Monday that lets users move their images more easily to other online services, as it faces pressure from regulators to loosen its grip on data. The social network's new tool will allow people to transfer their photos and videos directly to competing platforms, starting with Google Photos. The company said it will first be available to people in Ireland and will be refined based on user feedback. The tool will then be rolled out worldwide in the first half of 2020. US and European regulators have been examining Facebook's control of personal data such as images as they look into whether the tech giant's dominance is stifling competition and limiting choice for consumers. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reacted by calling for new rules to address "data portability" and other issues. Facebook said that as it worked on a new set of data portability tools, it had discussions with policymakers, regulators, and academ...

Facebook-owned WhatsApp is working on a feature that will delete messages automatically after a stipulated time as set by users, according to WABetaInfo, a fan site that tests new WhatsApp features early. Renamed " Delete Messages " from earlier " Disappearing Messages ", the feature is being tested in beta mode. "In the WhatsApp beta for Android 2.19.282 update, we presented a new feature called ' Disappearing Messages ' that will automatically delete messages after a certain time. The feature is still under development, and WhatsApp is starting to work again on it in the 2.19.348 update, where they renamed 'Disappearing Messages' to 'Delete Messages'," WABetaInfo reported. Once available, the "Delete Message" feature will come with a toggle on/off button and users can choose a stipulated time -- 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or 1 year -- for the messages to automatically disappear. Read More

WhatsApp has told the government it could have worked better with authorities regarding the use of Israeli spyware, Pegasus, allegedly used to snoop on Indian citizens. The spyware had exploited vulnerability in the messaging application’s code. In a communication to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), WhatsApp assured the government it would engage more to address issues that impact Indian citizens’ privacy, said sources. A WhatsApp spokesperson said the messaging service was committed to protecting the privacy of its over 400 million users in India. “ The government also plays a critical role here and we are committed to continuing to engage with it in a timely manner on sensitive issues related to user privacy and security. We regret that we have not met the government’s expectations on proactive engagement on these issues and will strive to do better,” the spokesperson added. According to an official at the MeitY, there could be a delay in ...

Content creators have criticised new Terms of Service from Google-owned YouTube that gives the company power to terminate account access for users if it deems the account is "no longer commercially viable". The video sharing platform started sending out the emails to users last week to notify about the upcoming changes to its terms of service to come into effect from December 10. "YouTube may terminate your access, or your Google account's access to all or part of the Service if YouTube believes, in its sole discretion, that provision of the Service to you is no longer commercially viable," the new YouTube terms of service read. "We will notify you with the reason for termination or suspension by YouTube," it added. The move hasn't gone well with content creators. The new terms of service have also left users baffled. "Y'all, tell @YouTube this isn't okay. This affects everybody, including you're favorite content cr...

Should Aadhaar be used as KYC for social media accounts? We have recently seen a debate on this question with even the courts hearing arguments in favour and against such a move. The case began in Madras High Court and later Facebook moved the SC seeking transfer of the petition to the Apex court. The original petition was filed in July, 2018 and sought linking of Aadhaar numbers with user accounts to further traceability of messages. Before we try and answer this question, we need to first understand the differences between the different types of data on social media and messaging platforms. If a crime happens on an end to end cryptographically secure channel like WhatsApp the police may request the following from the provider to help solve the case: 1.Identity data: Phone numbers of the accused. Names and addresses of the accused. 2.Metadata: Sender, receiver(s), time, size of message, flag identifying a forwarded messages, delivery status, read status, etc. 3.Payload ...