by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Online Marketing, Social Media, Technology
San Francisco : After Facebook and Google, Twitter was now likely to ban cryptocurrency, token sales and Initial Coin Offerings (ICO) advertisements on its platform.
According to a Sky News report on Monday, the new Twitter policy will be implemented in two weeks.
“Twitter may also ban all ads for cryptocurrency exchanges, with some limited exceptions, when the policy is launched,” the report added.
Google last week announced that it will ban advertisements for cryptocurrencies and other “speculative financial products” across its ad platforms.
The ban on such advertisements will come into force from June.
“We updated several policies to address ads in unregulated or speculative financial products like binary options, cryptocurrency, foreign exchange markets and contracts for difference (or CFDs),” Scott Spencer, Google’s Director of Sustainable Ads, said in a blog post.
“In June 2018, Google will update the financial services policy to restrict the advertisement of contracts for difference, rolling spot forex and financial spread betting,” Google said.
In 2017, Google took down more than 3.2 billion ads that violated its advertising policies.
Google also blocked 79 million ads in its network for attempting to send people to malware-laden sites and removed 400,000 of these unsafe sites last year.
In January, social media giant Facebook banned all ads promoting cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin and ICOs.
The new policy prohibits ads that promote financial products and services that are frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices, Facebook said in a statement.
“We want people to continue to discover and learn about new products and services through Facebook ads without fear of scams or deception.
“That said, there are many companies who are advertising binary options, ICOs and cryptocurrencies that are not currently operating in good faith,” said Rob Leathern, Product Management Director at Facebook.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, Markets, News, Social Entrepreneur, Social Media, Success Stories
By Nivedita Singh,
New Delhi : “Winter will go, snow will melt to make way for warmth of spring again”. Raabta, a Facebook page, begins on this optimistic note to re-establish broken links between Kashmiri families, friends, classmates and neighbours divided by decades of insurgency, civil strife and social acrimony.
Almost a month since the page with over 21,000 followers was created, Raabta — which translates into “connection” — has been able to connect five Kashmiri Hindu Pandit and Muslim families who live far away from each other.
Sameer Bhat, a Dubai-based journalist, hails from Sopore — known for its red, juicy apples and also once a militancy hotbed. Bhat wanted to connect with his Pandit neighbour Bunty “bhaiya” (elder brother). The page admin sounded out to all its followers if they could locate or tag Bunty from Sopore. And suddenly, there he was. And the virtual reunion was highly emotional.
Bunty bhaiya’s real name turned out to be Arun Koul, who is now based in Chandigarh. The two spoke for the first time in 28 years.
“It felt like 28 days ago, not even 28 weeks,” Bhat said, recalling how Bunty bhaiya and his family left the Valley and how all these years he missed “Herath” or “Shivratri” celebrations amid spring rains and soaked walnuts that Bunty’s mother would give him.
On March 8, the page posted a message from Anis Maqbool, looking for his Hindu friend Anil Moti. The two studied in Srinagar’s famous missionary school Tyndrale Biscoe till 1973. They never spoke to each other after leaving school. Presuming that Moti may have also left the valley at the height of militancy in early 1990s, Maqbool put out a search note for other Pandit friends too — Ramesh Kalposh and Prithvi Raj.
He was lucky to connect with Moti. Now based in Gurugram, near Delhi, Moti spoke with Maqbool over phone and the two discussed their lives and families. They also invited each other to their houses.
Moti “recalled the day when he was forced to leave and tear drops trickled down uninterrupted at both ends, like spring rains at home”, the page said in a post, reporting the re-union.
There are others who have posted lookout messages but not all have been as lucky. Suhail Naqshbandi, a Kashmiri cartoonist, wanted to speak to his school teacher “Mujju Ma’am” — who boosted his confidence when he had problems with understanding mathematics.
“It was at that nadir of crisis that an angel in the form of Miss Mujju came in my life. She asked us to (solve) a mathematical (problem). I hesitantly tried (but) my fear was not letting me do it. I felt a pat on my shoulder. I looked up and saw Miss Mujju smiling and telling me that it is O.K.”
“Her assurance and guidance gave wings to my confidence. My parents considered her a godsent guide for me,” the cartoonist wrote. But like many others, he has not been able to reconnect with his teacher — yet.
The brain behind the initiative is a Kashmiri advertising professional based in Gurugram named Jaibeer Ahmad.
“Despite polarisation, we continue to share bond as individuals. Bound together by our common heritage, culture, music, poetry, food and the phiran (the Kashmiri traditional overcoat),” Ahmad, 43, told IANS.
He said the migration of Pandits — this is how Kashmir’s native Hindu Brahmin community was traditionally known because of their erudition — did not just displace people but it tore apart friends, neighbours, teachers and colleagues. Pandits left the Valley in large numbers following the insurgency when they were targeted by mercenary militants who came across the border in Pakistan on the pretext of aiding Kashmir’s “freedom”.
Ahmad recalled the composite culture Kashmir’s Hindu Pandits and Muslims shared before the onset of militancy in the late 1980s.
“Today, there is bitterness, anger and animosity between the two communities. On social media, this hatred gets played out every day in the form of abuse and slander, dragging the communities further apart.
“Despite several efforts by the government and the civil society, there hasn’t been much progress. Most of these efforts are seen with suspicion from both sides,” he said, hoping that the initiative that he runs along with other Kashmiri friends — both Muslims and Hindus — bridges the gap between the divided communities that together made “Kashmiriyat” — or Kashmir’s unique composite culture.
(The weekly feature series is part of a positive-journalism project of IANS and the Frank Islam Foundation. Nivedita Singh can be contacted at nivedita.singh@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Social Media, World
A girl standing in front of a UN shelter for the internally displaced Rohingya in Myanmar. (Image: Reuters)
Geneva : The UN human rights experts have blamed Facebook for playing a key role in spreading hate speech against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
Marzuki Darusman, Chairman of the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, said on Monday that the social media platform had played a “determining role” in Myanmar.
“As far as the Myanmar situation is concerned, social media is Facebook, and Facebook is social media,” ABC Online quoted Darusman as saying.
More than 650,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state into Bangladesh since insurgent attacks sparked a security crackdown last August.
“(Social media) has … substantively contributed to the level of acrimony and dissention and conflict, if you will, within the public a Hate speech is certainly of course a part of that,” said Darusman.
UN Myanmar investigator Yanghee Lee said that “everything is done through Facebook in Myanmar,” adding it has been used to spread hate speech.
“I’m afraid that Facebook has now turned into a beast, and not what it originally intended,” she said.
Lee was speaking at the UN’s Human Rights Council in Geneva.
Facebook did not immediately comment on the fresh charges.
Lee, who was banned from Myanmar last year after it claimed a previous report by her was biased and unfair, said she had seen evidence that Myanmar’s military was continuing to target the Rohingya, razing their villages.
Last week, Sri Lanka barred social messaging networks, including Facebook, following violence against minority Muslims in Kandy district.
The government ordered internet and mobile service providers to temporarily block Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, as well as messaging service Viber, after officials said these platforms were fueling online hate speech.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Chennai : Hours after a BJP office in Tamil Nadu was attacked, party National Secretary H. Raja on Wednesday expressed regret for his Facebook post that said statues of rationalist movement founder E.V.Ramasamy or Periyar would be razed to the ground in the state.
Early on Wednesday a petrol bomb was hurled at a BJP office around 500 km from here in Coimbatore by unidentified persons.
Later in a fresh Facebook post on Wednesday, Raja expressed his heartfelt regret for his Tuesday’s post, which he claimed was a message posted by his social media administrator without his permission and hence he had removed it.
Raja expressed regret if his post had hurt anybody’s feelings. According to him, damaging the statues of Ramasamy is not agreeable.
The message that was posted and later removed said: “Who is Lenin? What is the connection between him (Lenin) and India? What connection between communism and India?
“Lenin’s statue was broken down in Tripura. Today it is Lenin’s statue in Tripura and tomorrow it will be the statue of caste fanatic E.V.Ramasamy.”
Late on Tuesday, two persons were arrested in Thirupattur in Vellore district for vandalising Ramasamy’s statue.
The attackers at the BJP’s office in Coimbatore had come in a three wheeler and had thrown the petrol bomb inside the office. Police are investigating the case.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate Jobs, Employment, Government Jobs, Markets, Networking, Online Marketing, Overseas, Private Jobs, Social Media, Technology
San Francisco : To help local businesses hire the right people, Facebook has expanded the ability to apply to jobs directly on its platform to more than 40 countries.
Rolled out in the US and Canada in 2017, Facebook’s job application feature is different from Microsoft-owned LinkedIn as it is focused to draw in candidates for small- and medium-size businesses.
Facebook, however, did not elaborate on which 40 countries were part of this expansion.
“Local businesses strengthen our communities and create more than 60 per cent of new jobs. We want to help people find those jobs and help local businesses hire the right people,” Alex Himel, Vice President of Local at Facebook, said in a blog post on Thursday.
In an online poll of 5,000 adults conducted by tech and media company Morning Consult, one in four people in the US said they searched for, or found a job using Facebook.
“Since introducing job postings on Facebook in the US and Canada, we’ve built new features for businesses like the ability to create job posts on mobile, manage applications, and schedule interviews,” Himel said.
Job seekers can also set up job alerts for the type of roles they’re interested in.
You can find jobs in the Jobs dashboard at facebook.com/jobs and the “Jobs” option in the “Explore” section on mobile, by clicking the Jobs icon in Marketplace, or visiting the Jobs tab of a business’ Page.
“When you’re ready to apply for a role, you can create an application, which will populate with job history and other information in your Facebook profile,” the blog post read.
You can edit your application before you submit it.
Once you finish applying, a Messenger conversation will open with the business’ Page so you can have direct contact with the employer and confirm when your information has been received.
According to Facebook, businesses will only be able to see information you provide them directly, and what’s available publicly on your Facebook profile.
“To stay on top of the type of job you’re interested in, you can also subscribe to alerts,” Himel said.
Businesses can also attract the right applicants and hire quickly.
Page admins can create job posts directly from their Page with details like job title, job type (full-time, intern, part-time), salary and more.
“Job posts will appear in multiple places on Facebook, including on a business’ Page, in the Jobs dashboard, in Marketplace, and in News Feed,” the company said.
Since 2011, Facebook has invested more than $1 billion to help local businesses grow and help people find jobs.
—IANS
