by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Media, Networking, Online Marketing, Social Media, Technology
San Francisco : Facebook is testing a new feature where it will have city-specific local news, events and announcements available on its platform.
The test is currently live for a new section called “Today In” in six US cities, CNET reported on Thursday.
Users in test markets will be able to access the feature through the bottom-right menu button on Facebook.
A machine learning (ML) software will power the “Today In” section, helping a team find local content.
Local news publishers will be approved by Facebook’s News Partnerships team.
The move comes as part of Facebook’s Journalism Project announced in January last year to curb the spread of fake news on its platform and build out local news partnerships.
Last year, the social media giant also tested products to connect its users to local news.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Networking, Social Media, Technology
San Francisco : With political pressure mounting on digital giants to pay more taxes, Facebook has announced plans to move to a local selling structure in countries where it has an office — a move aimed at paying tax in the country where profits are earned.
Currently, advertising revenue supported by Facebook’s local teams are recorded by its international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland.
The change in its selling structure announced on Tuesday means that advertising revenue supported by the local teams would be recorded by its office in that country.
“We believe that moving to a local selling structure will provide more transparency to governments and policy makers around the world who have called for greater visibility over the revenue associated with locally supported sales in their countries,” Dave Wehner, Chief Financial Officer, Facebook, wrote in a blog post.
The social media giant is expected to start paying tax on its local operations across roughly 30 jurisdictions outside the US including France, Germany and eight other EU countries where it has local offices, according to Politico.eu.
“It is our expectation that we will make this change in countries where we have a local office supporting advertisers in that country. That said, each country is unique, and we want to make sure we get this change right,” Wehner said
“We plan to implement this change throughout 2018, with the goal of completing all offices by the first half of 2019,” Wehner added.
The company has been under pressure from the US and Europe for its tax practices.
The European Commission feels that digital companies pay less tax than it should.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, News, Politics, Social Media, Technology
By Saket Suman,
New Delhi : Social media has fast emerged as a market of its own where selling and buying are both easier and more practical. But there has been a slow and steady rise of “promoted content” on such platforms, where one can increase the reach of one’s content manifold by simply advertising. In such a scenario, where start-ups run into existing big players with huge resources, has the magic wand of social media lost its purpose?
“No,” says Ankit Lal, a computer engineer-turned-activist who spearheaded the social media efforts of the Anna Hazare-led India Against Corruption campaign in 2012, the defining moment when the power of social media in shaping public perception was first felt in India.
“Promoted content does bring in value, but it can’t sell the unsellable. Content was, is and will remain the king. One can buy likes shares and engagement, but not creativity and talent. Natural talent will find a way out even in the sea of promoted content,” Lal, whose book “India Social” unravels the behind-the-scenes stories of some of the most influential social media movements of the past decade.
The consumption of popular culture too is shaped these days by the hashtags and trends of social media. Youtubers and Instagram influencers are celebrities in their own rights, reaching out to huge audiences by just a click on the computer.
Lal agreed that social media has changed the way pop culture icons were perceived but added that the industry itself now interacts with its fan base and public at large — and that is what has led to this change in consumption of popular culture.
“While earlier they had to be dependent on magazines, newspapers, TV or other media, now there is a way to directly connect with the audience. Response times have shrunk as well as the frequency of gaffes and controversies,” he said.
Lal reflected on the fact that, like any other technology, there are positive and negative aspects to social media too. Like fire can be used for burning down homes or cooking food or like nuclear technology can be used for generating electricity or making bombs, similarly social media can also be used for promoting good content or fake news, he said.
In his book, Lal notes that “social media has become the number one source of news for most young people across the world”. Asked to specifically comment on the aspect of fake news, Lal said that it is a basic dilemma that all new technologies face. It is for the social media influencers and platforms, he maintained, to ensure that the positives outweigh the negatives.
“Fake news and propaganda have been part of all platforms. There have been books which promote a certain idea, magazines which do propaganda of a certain ideology or even TV channels which have bias towards a certain ideology. Similarly, now there is the problem of fake news on social media.
“Earlier it was a bit difficult to find and counter this propaganda material as it used to work in closed groups isolated from the majority. With social media, everything is for everyone to consume. So, this bane of fake news is a boon in one way as now it is easier to detect and counter it. For every voice there had to be a counter voice; similarly, for fake news there needs to be fact-finding platforms. And they are now evolving. In India, platforms like SMHoaxSlayer and AltNews are filling this gap to a certain extent,” he asserted.
From the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, which unleashed the potential of the medium, to the 2012 India Against corruption protests; from the rage-filled Justice for Nirbhaya movement to the citizen-driven fight for a free Internet with the #NetNeutrality campaign; from the controversial #AIBRoast to the growth of WhatsApp as the main weapon used to spread the agenda and the ideology of the BJP and AAP, and plenty more — Lal’s “India Social” brings together, for the first time, behind-the-scenes stories of these social media movements: How they began, why they spread and the way they have reshaped democratic life in India.
(Saket Suman can be contacted at saket.s@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, News, Social Media
New York : More than four million donors in India have signed up for Facebook’s blood donation feature and the company will now expand this feature to Bangladesh, the social media giant has said.
In October, Facebook launched a new blood donations feature, starting in India, to make it easier for people to donate blood.
“There are now more than four million blood donors signed up on Facebook in India.
“In addition to enabling people in need to connect to blood donors, our tools also allow organisations to connect to donors more efficiently,” Naomi Gleit, Vice President, Social Good, said in a blog post late on Wednesday.
Hospitals, blood banks and non-profits can create voluntary blood donation events on Facebook, and nearby donors are notified of the opportunities to donate blood.
“In early 2018, we will expand blood donations to Bangladesh, where, like India, there are thousands of posts from people looking for blood donors every week,” Gleit noted.
Facebook also announced new tools and initiatives to help people keep each other safe and supported on its platform.
At the second annual Social Good Forum in New York late on Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company is introducing a new mentorship connection programme, new fundraising tools, blood donation initiative and the suicide prevention programme.
“Mentorship and Support is a new product where mentees and mentors come together to connect and interact directly with each other and progress through a guided programme developed by nonprofit organisations,” Gleit posted.
All donations made through Facebook payments to nonprofits will now go directly to those organisations.
“Facebook Donations Fund” is a $50 million annual fund for 2018 to help communities recover from disaster by direct contribution.
“People will now be able to sync their off-Facebook fundraising efforts to Facebook fundraisers, making it easier to tell friends and family about the causes they support on and off Facebook,” the company said.
When people connect their off-Facebook fundraising campaign with Facebook, it creates a Facebook fundraiser that syncs with their campaign page.
Facebook also introduced a Community Help API, which will give disaster response organisations access to data from public “Community Help” posts that can offer important information about the needs of people affected by a particular crisis.
“We are piloting the Community Help API with NetHope and the American Red Cross,” Facebook said.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Social Media, Technology
San Francisco : After running a successful trial with few users, Twitter has finally rolled out its new 280-character limit virtually for all users.
In September, Twitter launched a test that expanded the 140-character limit so that users could express themselves easily in a tweet.
“Our goal was to make this possible while ensuring we keep the speed and brevity that makes Twitter, Twitter.
“Looking at all the data, we’re excited to share we’ve achieved this goal and are rolling the change out to all languages where cramming was an issue,” the micro-blogging platform said in a blog post on Wednesday.
During the first few days of the test, many people tweeted the full 280-limit because it was new and novel but soon after, the behaviour normalised.
“We saw when people needed to use more than 140 characters, they tweeted more easily and more often. But importantly, people tweeted below 140 most of the time and the brevity of Twitter remained,” said Aliza Rosen, Product Manager, Twitter.
Only five per cent of tweets sent were longer than 140 characters and only two per cent were over 190 characters.
In addition to more tweeting, people who had more room to tweet received more engagement (Likes, Retweets, @mentions), got more followers and spent more time on Twitter during the experiment.
“Japanese, Korean and Chinese will continue to have 140 characters because cramming is not an issue in these languages. In fact, these languages have always been able to say more with their tweets because of the density of their writing systems,” the post said.
The average length of a tweet in Japanese is 15 characters, and only 0.4 per cent of tweets hit the 140-character limit.
But in English, a much higher percentage of tweets have 140 characters (nine per cent).
Most Japanese tweets are 15 characters while most English tweets are 34.
According to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, this is a small change, but a big move for them.
“The 140 limit was an arbitrary choice based on the 160 character SMS limit. Proud of how thoughtful the team has been in solving a real problem people have when trying to tweet. And at the same time maintaining our brevity, speed, and essence!” Dorsey had tweeted during the time of trial.
The 140-character limit has been around since 2006 and has become part of the product’s personality.
—IANS
