Social

Snapchat is evolving how users can view their Bitmojis on the app. The social media platform will now let users see a 3D version of the Bitmojis they have created for their profiles. Alongside, users will also be able to view their friends’ Bitmojis in 3D in the friendship profile. Snapchat parent company Snap Inc

Twitter is reportedly working on a way to let users log in using a connected Google account on Android devices. The functionality is a part of the latest beta update. The micro-blogging platform is also reportedly working on rolling out a similar functionality to its users on iOS. This will help users to log in

TikTok may make a comeback in India soon as its parent company ByteDance has filed a trademark for the short-form video app with the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks. It was among the 59 Chinese apps that the government banned in June last year. Shortly after the ban, the TikTok app was

An investigation by a global media consortium based on leaked targeting data provides further evidence that military-grade malware from Israel-based NSO Group, the world’s most infamous hacker-for-hire outfit, is being used to spy on journalists, human rights activists, and political dissidents. From a list of more than 50,000 cellphone numbers obtained by the Paris-based journalism

Google Duo will soon get a home screen redesign with a ‘New Call’ button. The new button is said to help make calls more easily. The ‘New Call’ button will also let users call their Assistant “Home” device. The new home screen user interface (UI) still retains the search bar at the top of the screen

Telegram has rolled out an update to patch security vulnerabilities that a group of researchers highlighted recently with the company’s MTProto protocol. Researchers from Royal Holloway, University of London analysed this encryption protocol used by Telegram and highlighted the flaws in its cloud chats method. The MTProto protocol is used when users do not opt-in

US President Joe Biden on Friday criticised social media platforms like Facebook for spreading misinformation about the coronavirus and vaccines, as his administration has blamed them for stalling US vaccine rates. Biden was asked by reporters at the White House on Friday afternoon what his message is to social media platforms on coronavirus misinformation. “They’re

Emojis offer a better way to add an emotional touch to a message. ‘I am excited’ might sound boring in a text, but add an emoji to it, it will automatically say what’s in your mind. ‘Lol’ has become a laughing emoji, ‘Ok’ has become a thumbs-up emoji and so on. These small characters have become

Facebook”s payment system is all set to extend to online retailers in August this year. As per an announcement made by Facebook on July 14, shoppers will eventually see another option listed next to the usual payment methods, now that Facebook Pay will expand beyond the company”s own platforms. Not long after credit card companies

Elon Musk tweets almost daily about an array of things. From space and electric vehicles to cryptocurrency and stocks, there’s nothing that escapes Musk’s eyes. Earlier this week, Michi Lumin, the creator of Dogecoin — the meme-based cryptocurrency — tweeted that he, too, needed to start tweeting obtuse and vague things and then hope that

TikTok owner ByteDance has been blocking new user and content creator registrations for its Chinese news aggregator Jinri Toutiao since September at the behest of regulators, according to people familiar with the matter. The halt on new registrations had not been previously reported. Some content creators have said on social media that they couldn’t register

Social networking giant Twitter is finally rolling out captions for voice tweets. The company had introduced the feature of voice tweets last year. As per The Verge, Twitter had rolled out the voice tweets feature in June 2020. At the time of the launch, the feature was criticised by many accessibility advocates for not having

Facebook said on Thursday it had taken down about 200 accounts run by a group of hackers in Iran as part of a cyber-spying operation that targeted mostly US military personnel and people working at defense and aerospace companies. The social media giant said the group, dubbed ‘Tortoiseshell’ by security experts, used fake online personas to

Clubhouse social audio app launched a direct messaging feature on Wednesday called Backchannel to allow one-to-one and group text chats. The platform shared the news on its Twitter feed. Reverse engineering expert Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) also tweeted that Clubhouse sent its users messages via Backchannel itself to introduce the new feature. My hat? TippedMy

WhatsApp says that it banned 20 lakh accounts between May 15 and June 15, 2021, to try and prevent harmful behaviour. In its first transparency report, published under the new Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, the company revealed that it had banned 20,11,000 accounts in this one-month period. The Facebook-owned messaging

Twitter on Wednesday announced that it will shut down its ephemeral Fleets feature on August 3, eight months after it was launched. The micro-blogging platform says the feature had failed to gain traction among users. The closure of Fleets comes just a month after Twitter had started testing advertisements on the feature. The company said

WhatsApp is testing improvements to its voice calling interface. It is also testing the ability to join group calls while they are in progress. The latter has not been possible until now, and if you miss a group call, then an active participant has to add you back in order to be able to join

Instagram is getting a new Security Check feature for users whose accounts may have been hacked in the past. The new feature, aimed at making user accounts more secure, will guide users through the steps required to keep their accounts secure. The steps include checking login activity, reviewing profile information, confirming accounts with shared login

Big Tech platforms Alphabet’s Google and Facebook were hit with a series of antitrust lawsuits by the US federal government and states on charges they are operating monopolies and abusing their power. Below is the status of the cases, as well as government probes of Apple and Amazon. Two lawsuits against Facebook: In a stunning

After more than 16 months of working from home, some Twitter employees in San Francisco and New York returned to the office on Monday as the company reopened its corporate campuses at 50 percent capacity in the two cities. With COVID-19 vaccination rates on the rise, major US tech companies are diverging on how and when to

Google Meet will now enforce a 60-minute limit on group video calls for free users. The video calling service, when it was made available to all users last year instead of just Enterprise or Education customers, had no time limit on calls for any number of participants. Google had said that it would introduce a

The Biden administration on Monday asked two federal appeals courts to dismiss the Justice Department’s legal challenges to court rulings that barred a Trump-era effort to ban new downloads of Chinese-owned video-sharing app TikTok. Last month, President Joe Biden withdrew a series of executive orders issued by former President Donald Trump that sought to ban

Twitter’s India unit appointed a resident grievance officer, days after designating a chief compliance officer, to meet new IT rules in the country, amid tensions with the government. The website of the US social media firm on Sunday showed Vinay Prakash as the new grievance officer along with his contact details and procedures for users to

Facebook’s WhatsApp on Monday faced a barrage of complaints by the European Consumer Organisation and others over a privacy policy update, which has prompted a global outcry and led some users to switch to rival apps Telegram and Signal. WhatsApp in January introduced a privacy policy which allows it to share some data with Facebook

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin shared a series of tweets comparing itself to Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, which took the latter billionaire to space on Sunday. Space is now the new battleground for supremacy, with billionaires Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Elon Musk all making their own attempts. Hours before British tycoon Branson flew into space aboard

WhatsApp users often face a lot of trouble while switching phones, especially when switching between operating systems. The social media platform is reportedly working on a solution to ease that process, but, until then, there are workarounds that users will have to make do with. At the moment, WhatsApp allows users to keep their account

WhatsApp is reportedly working on a new feature that will enable users to send images without compressing them too much. The new feature is still under development and hasn’t been enabled for beta testing users. This is in addition to video quality settings, that will also enable users to send videos on WhatsApp with minimum

Short-video sharing app TikTok said on Friday it will use more automation to remove videos from its platform that violate its community guidelines. At present, videos uploaded to the platform go through technology tools that work to recognize and flag any potential violations which are then reviewed by a safety team member. If a violation

Video calling application Google Meet recently added new video filters, effects, and augmented reality masks for personal calls on iOS and Android.  Google tweeted on July 7 that the new features are available via the sparkle icon at the bottom right of the video feed during a call, which brings up a carousel of different effects

Twitter is reportedly working on the ability to let users be part of audio conversations via the Web app. Support for users to join Spaces via the Web was introduced in May and now the company is working on letting people speak through the Web app as well. Currently, the ability to speak in Spaces