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Tooter is a new social media platform that seems to be gaining traction for being “swadeshi” or made in India. Tooter, as the name suggests, is conspicuously modelled after the microblogging platform Twitter. Its interface with a white-and-blue colour scheme, however, is somewhat a cross-over between Facebook and Twitter. The platform follows the same mechanics

Twitter Fleets, a feature that allows users to share disappearing stories, reportedly has a bug that makes the stories accessible even after their 24-hour expiration period. The bug that was causing Fleets to not delete properly, leaving them viewable for more than 24 hours, has been reportedly acknowledged by Twitter. The company is also said

Social media giant Twitter Inc faced censure from Indian legislators for a second time in weeks for failing to take down posts critical of India’s top court and judges that a parliamentary panel called “obscene”. The renewed heat from Indian legislators comes a day after an Indian parliamentary panel said Twitter submitted a written apology

Facebook for the first time on Thursday disclosed numbers on the prevalence of hate speech on its platform, saying that out of every 10,000 content views in the third quarter, 10 to 11 included hate speech. The world’s largest social media company, under scrutiny over its policing of abuses, particularly around November’s US presidential election, released

Twitter will hand control of the presidential @POTUS account to Joe Biden when he is sworn in on inauguration day, even if US President Donald Trump has not conceded his election loss, US media reported Friday. The social media giant is “actively preparing to support the transition of White House institutional Twitter accounts on January

Instagram has announced new updates for branded content on its platform, including the ‘Branded Content Tag’ feature in Reels. Instagram has launched the branded content tag to Reels, and it will soon be launched to Live as well. “We want to ensure creators can clearly disclose when they’re creating branded content, no matter what format

Internet and technology companies have threatened to leave Pakistan after the government granted blanket powers to authorities to censor digital content, a move critics say was aimed at curtailing freedom of expression in the conservative Islamic nation. Thursday’s warning from the Asia Internet Coalition, which represents global technology giants including Google, Facebook, and Twitter, comes

Vietnam has threatened to shut down Facebook in the country if it does not bow to government pressure to censor more local political content on its platform, a senior official at the US social media giant told Reuters. Facebook complied with a government request in April to significantly increase its censorship of “anti-state” posts for

Apple on Thursday slammed Facebook and other Internet giants for their advertisement-targeting practices in response to a letter questioning a decision by the iPhone maker to delay a new privacy feature. The Cupertino, California-based technology company criticised Facebook’s approach to advertising and user tracking, according to a written reply sent to several human rights and

Twitter has resolved most performance issues with its new ephemeral “fleets” product and expects to complete the global launch by Friday, the company’s product chief said in a live video on Thursday. “As we were rolling out over the first 24 hours, we stumbled into some load performance issues,” said Twitter Product Lead Kayvon Beykpour. “We

Earlier this month, WhatsApp had officially announced that it will be introducing disappearing Messages, a feature that automatically erases your WhatsApp messages after a certain period of time. The new feature is now finally rolling out for everyone. The details of the new feature are already there on an FAQ page created by WhatsApp, and

Instagram, a few months ago, started rolling out the option to connect Instagram direct messages with Messenger. During this big announcement, Instagram said that features like Watch Together, vanish mode, and chat themes will be added to Instagram direct messages and Facebook Messenger both, and now these features have been made available (one is rolling

Facebook has launched an app called E.gg for users in the US to offer them a “platform for freeform creative expression” and let them create zine-like webpages. The app, that was initially piloted earlier this year, is available for free download on Apple’s App Store. Unlike Facebook’s regular social networking platform where you can create

Facebook and Twitter defended their handling of US election misinformation at a heated congressional hearing Tuesday where one key senator assailed the platforms for being the “ultimate editor” of political news. The hearing, the second in less than a month, came with social media under fire from both the left and the right for their

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told US senators on Tuesday that a page which posted a “call to arms” during protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August had not violated the company’s “call to arms” policy. “My understanding is that that post did not necessarily violate that call to arms policy at the time,” said Zuckerberg, referring to

Instagram is reportedly upgrading search on its platform to support keywords. The search tab on Instagram currently offers the ability to search hashtags and accounts only. However, that is about to change as Instagram has begun rolling out keyword-based search support for select users in English-speaking users in six countries. Separately, Instagram is also expanding

China’s Baidu reported third-quarter revenue above market expectations on Monday and said it would buy social media platform JOYY ‘s video-based live streaming business in China for about $3.6 billion (roughly Rs. 26,800 crores). The company said through the deal it aims to diversify its revenue source, the bulk of which comes from ad sales on

Facebook says it is improving the way it moderates content on its platform by using artificial intelligence (AI). The social networking giant, which has a content review team of around 15,000 reviewers who review content in over 50 timezones, receives a significant amount of user reports on objectionable content on an active basis. However, as

The Solomon Islands has banned the use of Facebook for a temporary period after inflammatory critique of the government was aired on the social media platform, the Solomon Times reported. The government, led by Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, earlier told Reuters it would issue a formal statement on its decision later on Tuesday. Solomon Times

The US government has decided against enforcing its ban on Chinese-owned social media sensation TikTok to comply with a federal court ruling issued in the national security case, a media report said Thursday. The Wall Street Journal reported the US Commerce Department had decided to hold off on enforcing a Trump administration order to ban

Social media platform Parler, which styles itself as a “free speech-driven” space, gets funding from hedge-fund investor Robert Mercer and his daughter and conservative activist Rebekah, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. US right-wing social media users have flocked to Parler, messaging app Telegram, and hands-off social site Gab, citing the more aggressive policing

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told an all-staff meeting on Thursday that former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon had not violated enough of the company’s policies to justify his suspension when he urged beheading two senior US officials, according to a recording heard by Reuters. Zuckerberg acknowledged criticism of Facebook by President-elect Joe Biden but said

Twitter labeled 3,00,000 tweets related to the US presidential election as “potentially misleading” in the two weeks surrounding the vote, making up 0.2 percent of election-related posts, the company said Thursday. The social network said the labels were issued between October 27 and November 11, one week before and after the US presidential election on

Senator Marsha Blackburn, a Republican and a tough critic of the big tech companies, urged the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday to interview some former employees of Facebook as part of its probe of the social media giant. Both the FTC and groups of state attorneys general are widely believed to be planning litigation against

The Trump administration granted ByteDance a 15-day extension of a divestiture order that had directed the Chinese company to sell its TikTok short video-sharing app by Thursday. TikTok first disclosed the extension earlier in a court filing, saying it now has until November 27 to reach an agreement. Under pressure from the US government, ByteDance has

A former Facebook employee told a Delhi Assembly panel that violence in the national capital in February this year could have been easily averted if the social media giant had acted in a proactive and prompt manner. The Committee on Peace and Harmony, headed by Aam Aadmi Party leader Raghav Chadha, had summoned the former

In a letter to employees, TikTok India Head Nikhil Gandhi said the company has taken steps to comply with data privacy and security requirements and is optimistic about a positive outcome. PUBG Mobile’s announcement on Thursday where it talked about new security arrangements and customisation for India could point to a path back to the

Instagram and Facebook Messenger are getting their own version of ephemeral messaging with the introduction of Vanish Mode. Disappearing messages were once a Snapchat signature, although now versions of this exist across platforms including WhatsApp and Telegram. Instagram has also brought changes to its homepage. The Reels tab, which was launched recently in India, is

Facebook on Wednesday said its post-election ban on political advertisements would likely last another month, raising concerns from campaigns and groups eager to reach voters for key Georgia races in January that will decide control of the Senate. The ban, one of Facebook’s measures to combat misinformation and other abuses on its site, was supposed

Mmhmm, the video camera app that was launched in beta by former Evernote CEO Phil Libin in July, is now generally available for Mac users. The app debuted at the time when virtual meetings were at a new height, owing to the coronavirus outbreak in the global markets. Although Libin decided to go with an