by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
Washington : To dismiss claims of Russian collusion with Donald Trump’s campaign, the US President has leaned on a tweet by a top Facebook executive who said the main intent of the alleged Russian meddling was to divide America, not electing Trump.
“The main goal of the Russian propaganda and misinformation effort is to divide America by using our institutions, like free speech and social media, against us. It has stoked fear and hatred amongst [sic] Americans,” Rob Goldman, Vice President of Ads at Facebook tweeted on Friday.
He also applauded special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation of Russian trolls on social media during the 2016 US presidential election.
“The majority of the Russian ad spend happened after the election. We shared that fact, but very few outlets have covered it because it doesn’t align with the main media narrative of Tump and the election,” Goldman said in another tweet.
It did not miss the attention of the Twitter-savvy president who stated that Goldman’s thread supports his argument that there was “no collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia-linked meddling on social media.
“The Fake News Media never fails. Hard to ignore this fact from the Vice President of Facebook Ads, Rob Goldman!” Trump said in a tweet on Saturday.
In another tweet, Trump accused the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign while there was none.
“Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign – there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!” one of his tweets read.
Facebook and other social media platforms, like Twitter and Instagram, have come under intense scrutiny in past weeks, as more information has surfaced about how Russian actors used those platforms to spread misinformation online, CNBC reported on Saturday.
Mueller’s 37-page indictment, released on Friday, revealed the depth of Russian involvement in the US political process.
Mueller has indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities for allegedly meddling in the 2016 presidential election, charging them with conspiracy to defraud Washington, according to the Department of Justice.
In addition, three defendants were charged on Friday with conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud, and five defendants with aggravated identity theft, reported CNN.
“The defendants allegedly conducted what they called information warfare against the US, with the stated goal of spreading distrust towards the candidates and the political system in general,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said.
Mueller had convened a grand jury as part of his ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election as well as any possible connections between Moscow and President Donald Trump’s campaign associates.
According to the indictment, beginning as early as 2014, the Russian organisation Internet Research Agency began operations to interfere with the US political system, including the 2016 election.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Marketing Basics, Markets, Online Marketing, Social Media, Technology
San Francisco : Facebook has started opening up its Community Help feature — part of the Safety Check system — to businesses and other organisations so that that they can provide critical information and services for people to get the help they need in a crisis.
The Community Help feature was added to Facebook’s Safety Check system a year ago to let people find and give help such as food, shelter and transportation after a crisis.
“But people helping people is only part of the solution. Organisations and businesses also play an integral role in responding to crises and helping communities rebuild,” said Facebook’s Product Lead for Social Good Asha Sharma said on Thursday.
“Enabling organisations and businesses to post in Community Help will give them a new way to reach communities impacted by crises,” Sharma said.
Facebook has started rolling out the feature to Pages for organisations and businesses like Direct Relief, Lyft, Chase, Feeding America, International Medical Corps, The California Department of Forestry and Fire and Save the Children.
The social media giant said it would make the feature available to more in the coming weeks.
Some of the crises where people used Community Help the most in 2017 include the flooding in Brazil (May), Hurricane Harvey in the US (August), the attack in Barcelona (August), the flooding in Mumbai (August) and the earthquake in Central Mexico (September).
People have also engaged with Community Help more than 750,000 times via posts, comments and messages, and the most frequent categories they use are volunteer opportunities, shelter, food and clothing donations.
“Our priority is to build tools that help keep people safe and provide them with ways to get the help they need to recover and rebuild after a crisis,” Sharma said.
“We hope this update makes it even easier for people to get the help they need in times of crisis and will give businesses and organizations an opportunity to build stronger communities around them.”
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Investing, Markets, Social Media, Technology
London : Facebook has announced it will commit tens of millions of dollars to Community Leadership Program that is designed to empower global leaders who are building communities through its family of apps and services.
Apart from that, Facebook would also commit up to $10 million in grants that will go directly to people creating and leading communities so that Community Leaders could have more impact with additional support, the company said at the Facebook Communities Summit Europe in late on Friday.
“In addition, we introduced new tools for group admins and the expansion of our London-based engineering team that builds technology to help keep people safe on Facebook,” the social media giant wrote in a blog.
Under the programme, Facebook would offer Residency and Fellowship opportunities for training, support and funding to community leaders from around the world.
“Up to five leaders will be selected to be community leaders in residence and awarded up to $1,000,000 each to fund their proposals,” it said.
“Up to 100 leaders will be selected for our fellowship program and will receive up to $50,000 each to be used for a specific community initiative,” the company said.
Facebook would also expand its Community Leadership Circles programme that brings local community leaders together to meet up in person to connect, learn and collaborate as well as Groups for Facebook Power Admins that is being run with more than 10,000 group admins in the US and Britain to help leader share advice with one another.
Meanwhile, the new tools for Group Admins and Members would keep their communities safe, organised and engaged.
With the Admin Tools, admins can now find member requests, Group Insights making it easier to manage groups and freeing up more time for admins to connect with members.
Group announcements will let group admins to post up to 10 announcements that appear at the top of their group.
Now admins can create a dedicated rules section to help them effectively communicate the rules of the group to their members. Now admins can add a personalised colour that is displayed throughout their group.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Emerging Businesses, Investing, Markets, SMEs, Social Media, Technology
London : Facebook will train one million people and business owners across the European Union (EU) by 2020, and invest 10 million euros in innovation in France through its Artificial Intelligence (AI) research facility, the social media giant said on Monday.
Over the next two years, Facebook will join digital growth partner Freeformers to offer training to 300,000 people across the EU — in Britain, France, Germany, Poland, Italy and Spain.
“For 75,000 people, this training will be in person, and the rest will be online.
“All training will be tailored to each person, so someone with very strong skills could be taught how to code, while others might learn how to open a bank account online,” Ciaran Quilty, Vice President, Small Businesses, EMEA, said in a statement.
“We’re committing to open three new community skills hubs in Spain, Poland and Italy,” Quilty added. These will run in partnership with local organisations, offering training in digital skills, media literacy and online safety to the underrepresented groups.
Facebook will offer business owners more types of training to help them expand their digital footprint and find new customers around the corner and around the globe.
This includes in-person training for 100,000 small and medium businesses (SMBs) by 2020 and online training for 250,000 businesses.
“As part of Facebook’s flagship #SheMeansBusiness program, we will provide digital skills training to more than 15,000 women in France,” the company said.
At its AI facility in France, the company will increase Facebook AI Research Paris’ PhD fellows from 10 to 40, granting scholarships to students, and funding 10 servers as well as open datasets for French public institutions.
“The announcements are part of our ongoing investments in digital training. Since 2011, we’ve invested more than $1 billion to support small businesses around the world,” Quilty added.
Nearly 35 per cent of SMBs on Facebook surveyed in France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the UK say they built their business on Facebook.
About 49 per cent say they’ve hired more employees due to growth since joining Facebook.
“Nearly 57 per cent of businesses surveyed say they have increased sales because of the platform and 60 per cent say that the platform helps them sell products in other cities and countries,” Facebook said.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Networking, Online Marketing, Social Media, Technology
Mark Zuckerberg
San Francisco : After tweaking its News Feed to allow users to see more updates from family and friends than posts from businesses, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has now announced to prioritise news that is trustworthy, informative and local.
In a Facebook post on Saturday, Zuckerberg said it’s important that News Feed promotes high-quality news that helps build a sense of common ground for its over two billion users.
Here’s how this new update, starting in the US from next week, will work.
“As part of our ongoing quality surveys, we will now ask people whether they’re familiar with a news source and, if so, whether they trust that source,” the Facebook CEO said.
The idea is that some news organisations are only trusted by their readers or watchers, and others are broadly trusted across society even by those who don’t follow them directly, he added.
“To make sure the news you see, while less overall, is high quality. I’ve asked our product teams to make sure we prioritise news that is trustworthy, informative, and local.
“And we’re starting next week with trusted sources,” Zuckerberg added.
According to him, the new update will not change the amount of news people see on Facebook. It will only shift the balance of news they see towards sources that are determined to be trusted by the community.
The earlier News Feed update to show more updates from family and friends will result in less public content, including news, video, and posts from brands in your News Feed, he noted.
“After this change, we expect news to make up roughly four per cent of News Feed — down from roughly five per cent today. This is a big change, but news will always be a critical way for people to start conversations on important topics,” the Facebook CEO said.
He said that Facebook has got a feedback from the community that public content — posts from businesses, brands and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.
The impact will vary from Page to Page, driven by factors, including the type of content they produce and how people interact with it.
—IANS
