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TikTok, WeChat, and a total of 59 apps from Chinese companies have been permanently banned in India by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) according to reports. These apps were banned by the government in June 2020, and now, reports quoting sources say that the ban for these apps is permanent now. In

WhatsApp is treating Indian users differently from Europeans over opting out of its new privacy policy which is a matter of concern for the government and it is looking into the issue, the Centre informed the Delhi High Court on Monday. The central government told the high court that it was also a matter of

A US judge on Thursday rejected Parler’s demand that Amazon restore web hosting services for the social media platform, which Amazon had cut off following the January 6 storming of the US Capitol. US District Judge Barbara Rothstein in Seattle said Parler was unlikely to prove Amazon breached its contract or violated antitrust law by

Alphabet’s Google said on Friday it would block its search engine in Australia if the government proceeds with a new code that would force it and Facebook to pay media companies for the right to use their content. Google’s threat escalates a battle with publishers such as News Corp that is being closely watched around

Facebook said on Thursday it was referring its decision to indefinitely suspend the accounts of former US President Donald Trump to its independent oversight board. Trump will remain suspended while the board, a recently created body that can overrule the company’s decisions on content, reviews the decision. Facebook blocked Trump’s access to his Facebook and

Tesla chief and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk took to Twitter to promise a $100-million (roughly Rs. 730 crores) prize for development of the “best” technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions. Capturing planet-warming emissions is becoming a critical part of many plans to keep climate change in check, but very little progress has been made on

The Italian data privacy watchdog ordered video app TikTok on Friday to block the accounts of any users in Italy whose age it could not verify following the death of a 10-year-old girl who had been using the Chinese-owned app. In a statement, the regulator said that although TikTok had committed to ban registration for

Twitter said Friday it has permanently banned an account that some in Iran believe is linked to the office of the country’s supreme leader after a posting that seemed to threaten former President Donald Trump. In the image posted by the suspect account late Thursday, Trump is shown playing golf in the shadow of a

Google and Facebook have granted an Australian local government news provider status, drawing questions about the Internet giants’ efforts to curate news media. Bundaberg Council, a regional government, told Reuters a website it runs received classification as a Google “news source”, making it the country’s first local government with that accreditation. That means a council-funded

Signal appears to have started developing a range of new features that are already available on WhatsApp. The new changes have come into notice just days after the instant messaging app welcomed a rush of new users. Signal’s rise in popularity has come in the wake of a privacy policy update by WhatsApp that has

Beeper is a new app that brings 15 chat platforms into a unified inbox. It acts as a central hub and combines your chats from apps like Facebook Messenger, Signal, Twitter (Direct Messages), Telegram, WhatsApp, , and more. Interestingly, Beeper can even bring Apple’s iMessage to Android, Linux, and Windows. Besides messaging, you can search,

Facebook executives will field questions from a parliamentary panel on Thursday about the changes to WhatsApp’s privacy, a source said, days after the messaging platform was asked by the country’s technology ministry to withdraw them. The panel will ask why Facebook needed to change WhatsApp’s privacy policy and how it will impact users, the source

Twitter is restarting its verification process from Friday, January 22, so more accounts will be able to get the blue tick mark from the social network. Twitter said it will be relaunching the self-serve application portal for the public to apply for verification in 2021. Here is everything you need to know about the changes

Twitter has locked the account of China’s US embassy for a tweet that defended China’s policies in the Xinjiang region, which the US social media platform said violated the firm’s policy against “dehumanisation”. The Chinese Embassy account, @ChineseEmbinUS, posted a tweet this month that said that Uighur women were no longer “baby making machines,” citing

It’s a Twitter user’s worst nightmare: Wake up to find most of your followers gone. But that’s exactly what will happen on Wednesday to the official presidential accounts on Twitter. No, not @realDonaldTrump — he’s already been banned for life. This is the fate awaiting lesser-known accounts such as @POTUS, @WhiteHouse, @FLOTUS and @VP. (POTUS

World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee says Australia’s plan to force digital giants to pay media outlets for news content is “unworkable” and undermines a “fundamental principle” of the Internet. Canberra is pursuing world-first laws that would require Google and Facebook to compensate Australian news organisations, or pay millions of dollars in fines. The aggressive

Facebook’s Automatic Alt Text (AAT) system can now detect and identify 10 times more objects and concepts than it could when it was first launched, announced the company. Descriptions will also be more detailed, and AAT will be able to identify activities, landmarks, types of animals, and more. Facebook announced improvements to AAT, a system

Turkey’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority has imposed advertising bans on Twitter, Periscope and Pinterest under a new social media law, according to decisions published in the country’s Official Gazette on Tuesday. The law, which critics say will muzzle dissent, requires social media companies to appoint local representatives in Turkey. On Monday, Facebook joined other

The Indian government has asked WhatsApp to withdraw the recent changes in the privacy policy of the messaging app, saying unilateral changes are not fair and acceptable. In a strongly worded letter to WhatsApp CEO Will Cathcart, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said India is home to the largest user base of

Is Facebook tracking your every move? The answer is partially yes. This is because the social networking giant wants to show you personalised and targeted ads. But tracking your activities isn’t new for Facebook. The company last year introduced ‘Off-Facebook activity’ — a tool that lets users look at the information Facebook obtains about them

Parler, the social network popular among conservatives, could return to Apple’s App Store if it changes how it moderates posts on the platform, the tech giant’s CEO Tim Cook said Sunday. Apple suspended all downloads of the Parler app following the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, citing postings on the platform that

Image-centric social network Snapchat on Wednesday said it has permanently banned US President Donald Trump from the platform, as voices are raised against keeping him off the Internet stage. Trump’s access to social media has been largely cut off since a violent mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington DC in a deadly

WhatsApp announced delaying by three months the implementation of a new privacy policy that has faced massive backlash with tens of millions of its users moving from the platform to rivals like Signal and Telegram. The policy change was originally scheduled to come into effect on February 8, the Facebook-owned company said. It has clarified

Pension fund managers and religious investors on Friday asked top social media companies to step up their content control efforts to reduce the threat of violence ahead of the inauguration of US President-elect Joe Biden next week. The effort is the latest pressure on Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet over extreme rhetoric after the storming of the US Capitol

Google has started hiding Australian news sites from some local users, in an experiment that comes amid Canberra’s push to compel tech firms to pay media outlets for their content. Australia plans to force Google and Facebook to pay media organisations when their platforms host their content or face millions of dollars in fines, in

WhatsApp’s updated privacy policy verges on user surveillance and threatens India’s security, a petition filed in an Indian court said on Thursday, presenting another legal challenge for the Facebook-owned messenger. California-based WhatsApp said on January 4 it reserved the right to share some data including location and phone number with Facebook and its units such

WhatsApp is reportedly working on a Read Later feature, that is essentially a rejig of what Archived Chats is right now. Read Later, as the name suggests, will keep all chats added to this list muted, and new message notifications for these chats won’t be offered to reduce frequent interruptions. Essentially, users can put all

WhatsApp is battling mistrust globally after it updated its privacy policy to let it share some user data with parent Facebook and other group firms, and the backlash risks thwarting its ambitions in its biggest market, India. Though WhatsApp has yet to see mass uninstalls of its app in India, users concerned about privacy are

Facebook has seen an increase in signals indicating potential future acts of violence associated with efforts to contest the result of the US presidential election since the Capitol siege last week, a company spokeswoman told Reuters. The spokeswoman, who asked not to be named for security reasons, said late Tuesday the storming of the US

Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey said on Wednesday that banning President Donald Trump from its social media platform after last week’s violence at the US Capitol was the “right decision,” but said it sets a dangerous precedent. San Francisco-based Twitter last week removed Trump’s account, which had 88 million followers, citing the risk of further