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  • Meta developing new social networking app to compete with Twitter

    Meta developing new social networking app to compete with Twitter

    Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is developing a standalone text-based social network app that could potentially compete with both Twitter and its decentralised rival, Mastodon.

    According to reports, Meta is exploring the creation of a decentralised social network for sharing text updates, providing a separate space where public figures and creators can share timely updates about their interests.

    Meta’s Twitter-like app would allow the company to take advantage of the current confusion at Twitter, where cost-cutting has been widespread ever since Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform late last year. Companies have withdrawn their spending following Twitter’s restoration of suspended accounts and release of a paid account verification that resulted in scammers impersonating firms.

    The new app, codenamed P92, will allow users to log in using their existing Instagram credentials and will be based on a similar framework to Mastodon, a Twitter-like service launched in 2016.

    The decentralised platform cannot be run at the whim of a single entity and cannot be bought or sold. Meta’s plans come at a time when Facebook, its largest platform, is struggling to capture the attention of younger audiences. In addition, the company has invested heavily in the metaverse, a virtual world where users interact and work, which has yet to come to fruition.

    Instagram, its video-sharing app, is also facing tough competition as content creators or hit influencers abandon the platform in favour of TikTok. It is currently unclear when Meta will launch the new app.

  • Biopic on Dada: Ranbir Kapoor to play the role of Saurav Gangully

    Biopic on Dada: Ranbir Kapoor to play the role of Saurav Gangully

    Biopic on Dada: Ranbir Kapoor to play the role of Saurav Gangully

    Ranbir Kapoor has bagged another covered role, getting selected to portray Saurav Ganguly, the Dada of Indian cricket, in an upcoming biopic.

    Ganguly, considered one of the greatest Indian captains, played for his country from 1992 till 2008 when he retired from all formats of the game.

    After his retirement from cricket, Ganguly has remained involved in the sport as a commentator and administrator. He was the President of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) from 2019 to 2021.

    Shooting of the biopic will start soon after the promotion of Ranbir Kapoor’s new film
    “Tu Jhuuti May Makaar” is over.

    Film makers have not announced the full cast yet but it is confirmed that Ranbir Kapoor will do the lead role. As per details, MS Dhoni, also known as Saurav Ganguly’s talent pick in 2006 series against Pakistan, will also be essayed in the film.

    The movie will be directed by filmmaker Hansal Mehta and produced by Shemaroo Entertainment in association with Joy Ganguly, Saurav Ganguly’s brother.
    The biopic is expected to showcase Ganguly’s journey as a cricketer and his rise to becoming the captain of the Indian cricket team. It will also delve into the controversies that he faced during his career, including the infamous 2002 feud with former Indian coach Greg Chappell.

  • Kiran Ashfaque talks about her divorce with Imran Ashraf in a Q&A session on Instagram

    Kiran Ashfaque talks about her divorce with Imran Ashraf in a Q&A session on Instagram

    Actor Imran Ashraf announced last year that he and his wife Kiran Ashfaque had chosen to part ways after four years of marriage. Both had not addressed the reason why they had decided to end their marriage, until now Ashfaque held a Q&A session with her fans on her Instagram stories, where she spoke out about why she had chosen to get a divorce.

    When a fan had asked Ashfaque about why she chose to end her marriage to Ashraf, she had responded:

    “Not all that glitters is gold.”

    Among the other questions, Ashfaque was also asked about whether she had felt insecure and awkward when other people asked her a lot of questions about her divorce, to which she proudly let other women who followed her know that becoming a divorcee isn’t a stain on your identity, and it was empowering to escape a situation that wasn’t helping you grow.

    “This will not go on for long. We will keep dealing with it with a smile.”

    Other followers also asked her why she had chosen to leave Ashraf to which she had said

    “Why don’t you go and ask him yourself.”

    One of the common ways society shames women for seeking their independence or for escaping repressive situations is by labelling them as ‘bold’ a term associated with women who refuse to break themselves down for the sake of keeping others happy. When a fan asked Ashfaque about other people calling her bold for choosing to get a divorce, she addressed it in the most badass way.

    “I was always a very bold person but I changed myself for someone else. My advise to anyone out there is that they should never change themselves for anyone else.”

    Ashfaque also had advice for another woman who asked her how to deal with society’s taunts, after she got divorced when she was 22. Ashfaque replied by telling her that she should never allow other people to dictate her life choices.
    “Why did you allow them to do that? Never give anyone permission to disrespect you.”

  • Donald Trump to return to Facebook, Instagram after two-year ban

    Donald Trump to return to Facebook, Instagram after two-year ban

    Donald Trump will be allowed back on to Facebook and Instagram after Meta announced it would be ending its two-year suspension of his social media accounts.

    The ban will end “in the coming weeks,” Meta said. In a statement, Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said the public “should be able to hear what their politicians are saying.”

    The former US president was indefinitely suspended from Facebook and Instagram after the Capitol riots in 2021.

    The social media giant had acted following Trump’s “praise for people engaged in violence at the Capitol,” Clegg said. “The suspension was an extraordinary decision taken in extraordinary circumstances,” he added.

    Clegg said a review had now found that Trump’s accounts no longer represented a serious risk to public safety. However, owing to Trump’s past, he would now face intensified penalties for any offences in the future.

    Meta’s Oversight Board, a body it set up to review moderation rulings, said that the decision to reinstate Trump on its platforms “sat with Meta alone; the board did not have a role in the decision.”

    The board had already informed Meta that a review of Trump’s suspension was necessary.

    It encouraged Meta to be open and to offer more details about new laws protecting public figures so that it could assess how they were being applied.

  • Lionel Messi’s World Cup win Instagram post crosses 45 million likes

    Lionel Messi’s World Cup win Instagram post crosses 45 million likes

    Lionel Messi finally received the World Cup trophy in what he declared to be his final game, regardless of the win.

    While the match appeared to be a straightforward victory for Argentina over a fatigued France team for much of the final, Kylian Mbappé’s extraordinary brace at the start of the final 10 minutes of regulation time transformed the game into a nail-biting thriller that has been hailed as one of the greatest World Cup finals of all time.

    Messi himself scored twice, including a goal late in extra time that appeared to finally give Argentina the victory. But Mbappé scored from a penalty spot seconds later to seal his hat-trick and trigger a penalty shoot after the game finished 3-3. Argentina ultimately won the penalty shootout 4-2 thanks to goals from Messi and Mbappé, who are also Paris St. Germain colleagues on the club level.

    He next shared pictures of himself rejoicing with the trophy along with a heartfelt Instagram post in which he congratulated his teammates, family, and Argentina’s supporters.

    Although it could be his last World Cup game, he still plans to play for Argentina. “WORLD CHAMPIONS!!!!!!! I dreamed it so many times, I wanted it so much that I still haven’t fallen, I can’t believe it,” Messi said in Spanish.

    “Thank you very much to my family, to all who support me and also to all who believed in us. We demonstrate once again that Argentines when we fight together and united we are capable of achieving what we set out to do. The merit belongs to this group, which is above individualities, it is the strength of all fighting for the same dream that was also the dream of all Argentines… We did it!!! GO ARGENTINA!!!!! we are seeing each other very soon,” Messi wrote in his latest Instagram post.

    The latest post currently has more than 45 million likes, making it the most popular Instagram post from a sportsperson.

    A post featuring Messi also held the previous record, but it was posted by his great rival Cristiano Ronaldo. The picture appeared to show Ronaldo and Messi engaged in a game of chess.

  • Twitter reverses controversial new policy that bans links to other social media platforms

    Twitter reverses controversial new policy that bans links to other social media platforms

    Less than 24 hours after it was first introduced, Twitter removed its controversial new policy that banned links to certain other social media sites on Sunday evening.

    Elon Musk, the platform’s owner, asked Twitter users if they thought he should step down as the platform’s CEO before the development took place. The results of the poll are expected early on Monday.

    Twitter deleted the tweet that listed the competing websites users will not be allowed to tweet links to, including Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and Truth Social, in response to a significant backlash against the policy.

    Additionally, it removed a tweet thread from its @TwitterSupport account that had earlier in the day announced the policy.

    Another official Twitter account, @TwitterSafety, is now running a poll asking users whether the platform should “have a policy preventing the creation of or use of existing accounts for the main purpose of advertising other social media platforms.” That poll is set to conclude Monday at 9 pm Eastern time.

  • Instagram fixes bug that locked users out of their accounts

    Instagram fixes bug that locked users out of their accounts

    Instagram announced on its Twitter account that an outage that started on Monday morning has been fixed.

    Instagram locked users out during the downtime and informed many of them that their accounts will be suspended on October 31, 2022. Due to a bug, numerous accounts with massive followings lost a considerable portion of their followers.

    The majority of reports of the problem appeared to come from iPhone users, with some claiming that their app recently crashed and became unusable prior to an update earlier this morning.

    “We’ve resolved this bug now — it was causing people in different parts of the world to have issues accessing their accounts and caused a temporary change for some in number of followers,” Instagram wrote. “Sorry!” The platform first confirmed the issue on Twitter at 10:14 AM ET but didn’t say things were resolved until many hours later at 6 PM ET. Adam Mosseri, who heads up Instagram, also apologized for the outage.

    Around the time Instagram acknowledged the problem, reports on Downdetector reached over 7,000, although they have levelled off since then.

    Around 10:15 AM ET, a quick glance at Cristiano Ronaldo’s Instagram account revealed that, although it still had 493 million followers the day before, it appeared to have lost 3 million of those. However, the figure has now risen to 493 million. More than a million fewer people were using Instagram’s main account.

  • Twitter plans to launch a TikTok-like video feature

    Twitter plans to launch a TikTok-like video feature

    The video scrolling feature seen on TikTok will be quite similar to a new feature that Twitter is currently working on. This format for videos already exists on platforms like Instagram and YouTube, and it appears that Twitter is the most recent to follow suit.

    On its most recent application release, the social media behemoth is now testing the new functionality. With just one click, viewers may play videos in full screen mode, providing a simple and engaging viewing experience. You only need to launch the Twitter app and press on the search button at the bottom if you want to try it out. From here, you can scroll down to see the section labelled ‘Videos For You’.

    When you choose this, a full-screen Immersive Video mode will open, allowing you to scroll up and down to see videos one after the other. Based on your followers as well as those you might not follow, videos will be shown to you. However, the decision will probably be made based on the material you’ve lately viewed. This functionality is now only available to Android users, but it should soon be available to iOS users as well.

    The content that is displayed in the “Videos For You” section will also indicate how many views each video has received. Additionally, the tweets will display Tweets and trends that users may find interesting. The new video option is currently only accessible in a few countries where Twitter is used in English.

  • PTA blocks more than 1 million social media accounts for posting illegal content

    PTA blocks more than 1 million social media accounts for posting illegal content

    Over 1.1 million social media accounts were suspended by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) for posting “illegal” content and engaging in defamation campaigns against organisations.

    According to specifics, PTA received over 1,200,000 complaints, including 134,000 against Facebook, and barred more than 1,135,000 IDs for uploading “illegal” content and taking part in a smear campaign against government institutions.

    PTA reported that Facebook has blocked more than 112,000 bogus IDs. In addition, the agency received 65,122 complaints for immoral content posted on TikTok; following an investigation, 63,000 IDs were disabled.

    According to ARY News, the PTA took down more than 36,000 YouTube videos and blacklisted 31,860 Twitter IDs in response to complaints.

    After lowering the number of non-operational sites to 163, the PTA previously declared that it has restored telecom services in more flood-affected areas.

    PTA said on Twitter via its handle that ongoing efforts by the organisation and telecom providers to restore connectivity in flood-affected areas have further reduced the number of non-operational sites to 163.

    Additionally, PTA stated that work is underway to restore telecom services completely in flood-affected areas on a priority basis.

  • Naseem Shah warns that a fake Snapchat account with almost one million followers is using his name

    Naseem Shah warns that a fake Snapchat account with almost one million followers is using his name

    A fake account has been created on Snapchat in the name of Pakistani fast bowler Naseem Shah, who garnered international fame during the Asia Cup. He recently asked his fans to report the account so that it can be banned by the app.

    On the photo and video sharing platform Instagram, where Naseem Shah has over a million followers, he recently posted a story informing followers of his fake Snapchat account.

    Making fake accounts online using the names of well-known celebrities has become increasingly common. Anyone operating the account utilises the name of any popular or viral figure to get followers and likes, especially those without verified social media accounts.

    The bogus Snapchat account made in the name of Naseem Shah has 976,000 followers as of now.