by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, News, Politics, Social Media
Sharad Pawar
Mumbai : Coming out in support of young victims of social media trolls, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) President Sharad Pawar on Saturday exhorted them to speak out against the wrong policies of the government and oppose growing incidents of intolerance and fascism across India.
In an unique initiative, Pawar met around 35 youngsters who have been threatened on social media and/or booked by police for speaking out their minds against the government and its policies on WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook or other public and community fora in the past few weeks.
Seeking to create the right atmosphere to put the youngsters at ease, Pawar made it clear at the start of the three-hour interactive session: “You can bluntly criticize me — Say anything you want freely. Tell me honestly where my party or I am going wrong.”
Many of them displayed courage and gave an earful, mainly on NCP politics, to the 76-year-old Pawar who listened intently without interruption while some aides made notings of the suggestions expressed.
“It was an absolutely free and candid exchange of views between the NCP chief and the youngsters who gave their frank opinions on a wide range of issues confronting the country, especially on the reduced tolerance levels, the attacks on freedom of thought, speech and expression,” senior NCP legislator Jitendra Awhad told IANS.
Another party leader who was present on the sidelines said the exercise was part of a long-term strategy to attract the liberal-minded youths to the NCP fold, infuse fresh thinking of GenNext vis-a-vis traditional politics and rejuvenate the party before the 2019 elections.
The youth recounted the harassment they have faced in recent weeks at the hands of the law-enforcing agencies who allegedly ‘snoop’ on writings and views posted on various social media, the notices sent by the police department in Mumbai and other parts of the state.
Besides, they gave examples of how they are systematically trolled on social media for airing their opinions against the government policies and the rulers, being ridiculed, threatened and abused, and efforts made to silence them.
Several of them expressed concerns over the growing levels of intolerance that have gripped various sections of society which have even manifested in the killings of people with liberal views, the most recent being journalist Gauri Lankesh.
Some others voiced distress over what they termed “a grim economic scenario”, with “salaries getting slashed or jobs lost”, the “misplaced priorities of the government” which focused more on issues not concerned with public welfare activities, and the general situation that has created an uncertain future for the youth.
“Continue expressing yourself against anything you feel is going wronga I am solidly behind you and you have nothing to worry,” advised Pawar, who later hosted lunch for the invitees at the Y.B. Chavan Centre.
“When the youth of Maharashtra are speaking up for protecting democracy, it is wrong to target them and suppress their voice. The people of the state will not tolerate any attempts to curb the freedom of expression,” Pawar remarked at the end of the discussions.
The meeting came against the backdrop of notices sent to over two dozen youths, including journalists, by the Cyber Cell of Mumbai Police in connection with some fake accounts on Facebook and probing what has been touted as “objectionable content against Prime Minister Narendra Modi” among others.
After an account under the fictitious name of ‘Dev Gaikwad’ was detected a few weeks ago, police got into action by arresting one persons and slapping notices on several persons summoning them for investigations in the matter.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Social Media, Technology, World
Washington : Twitter has turned over to the US Senate 201 profile names of accounts associated with alleged Russian effort to meddle in the presidential election last year.
The handover took place this week, Xinhua quoted US media reports saying on Friday. It was part of the social networking service’s effort to aid in the Russian probe.
Those handles were previously not submitted partly due to legal privacy issues, the reports said.
The move came after critics said that the tech giant was not taking the congressional probe seriously enough.
Twitter was also criticised for reportedly deleting tweets and other user data useful to investigators looking into Moscow’s suspected manipulation of the social media service during the 2016 election.
The Senate has invited Twitter, along with Facebook and Google, to a public hearing set for November 1.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Networking, Social Media, Technology
London : The services of Facebook and Instagram were restored after the social media platforms went down reportedly due to a global connection problem with Europe and North America, the worst affected by the fault.
As per a report in The Guardian, users of both social media sites began reporting problems late Wednesday afternoon. By evening, the number of reported problems had dropped to normal levels.
“Earlier today, a networking issue caused some people to have trouble accessing Facebook services.
“We quickly investigated and started restoring access within about an hour and we have nearly fixed the issue for everyone. We’re sorry for the inconvenience,” a Facebook spokesperson was quoted as saying.
The report said the services on both website and apps were affected. Some users were able to access their accounts, with others suggesting only certain parts of the websites were functioning.
However, Facebook’s instant messaging service Messenger was unaffected.
The social media giant said it was “aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing Facebook and Instagram”.
The problems led to the hashtag #FacebookDown trending globally on Twitter.
Some users were greeted by a message when they tried to log into their accounts.
“Facebook is down for required maintenance right now, but you should be able to get back on within a few minutes. In the meantime, read more about why you’re seeing this message. Thanks for your patience…,” the message read.
Facebook, which acquired Instagram for $1 billion in 2012, has over two billion monthly active users. Instagram, meanwhile, has 800 million monthly and 500 million daily active users — 200 million of whom use ‘Stories’ feature.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Social Media, Technology
London : Millions of users across the world, especially in Europe and the US were left snapped when the popular photo-sharing app Snapchat crashed globally for several hours.
According to independent website Down Detector that monitors web outages, thousands of users reported problems with sending snaps, receiving snaps login issues and connection problems late on Monday, Evening Standard reported.
Snapchat acknowledged the technical glitch on its support page on Twitter early on Tuesday, saying the company is aware of the issue and looking into it.
Some users went to Twitter and shared their frustration.
“I’ve been sending people abuse on snapchat for not replying to me only to discover it’s down. Oops?” one user tweeted.
“Snapchat just went down. I can literally feel the panic of a thousand generations in my bones. #snapchat,” another user posted.
Snapchat currently has 166 million users globally.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Networking, Social Media, Technology
San Francisco : After testing in Portugal last month, the option to syndicate Instagram Stories to Facebook Stories has now also appeared for US users.
Facebook has also confirmed that the feature is being officially rolled out for everyone around the world, TechCrunch reported on Friday.
“You now have the option to share your Instagram Stories to your Facebook Stories. We are always working to make it easier to share any moment with the people who matter to you,” a Facebook spokesperson was quoted as saying.
While the option to post Facebook Stories to Instagram Stories has not come yet, the company said it might bring it in near future.
The new option would cut down the trouble of manually uploading Stories on each platform separately.
Last month, Instagram had enabled the feature for users to view Stories on both mobile web and desktop.
Instagram Stories has garnered over 250 million monthly active users and the application has nearly 700 million users globally.
—IANS
