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Tag: Facebook

  • Facebook faces one of its longest global outages

    Facebook faces one of its longest global outages

    New Delhi: Social media giant Facebook along with its subsidiary platforms, Instagram and WhatsApp experienced one of its longest global outages on Monday night after the services remained non-functional at least for over five hours.

    The exact reason for the outage has not been established as yet. 

    Facebook took to Twitter to acknowledge the problem after several users complained of issues in accessing the social media site. “We are aware that some people are having trouble accessing our apps and products. We are working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, and we apologise for any inconvenience,” a Facebook spokesperson tweeted.

     

     

    India has one of the highest numbers of users of Facebook as well as its other platforms. As per government data shared earlier this year, India has 53 crore WhatsApp users, 41 crore Facebook users and 21 crore Instagram users.

     

     

    Facebook chief technology officer, Mike Schroepfer said the social media company was experiencing “networking issues” and teams were working as fast as possible to debug and restore as fast as possible.

    As the Facebook-owned sites remained down, users took to alternative sites, including Twitter, Telegram, and Signal to connect with each other. While there have been similar outages in the past, the issues were resolved within a short time. However, on Monday, the sites remained down for as long as five hours.

    WhatsApp services resumed early on Monday morning, while Facebook and Instagram users continued to face issues.

     

     

  • Facebook launches its creator education program in India

    Facebook launches its creator education program in India

    Mumbai: On Instagram and Facebook’s 2021 edition of ‘Creator Day India,’ the company on Thursday launched its largest creator education and enablement program in India – www.bornoninstagram.com, thereby democratising learning for creators across India.

    The event featured creators launching their own augmented reality (AR) effects in partnership with Facebook, as well as those who have monetised well and gained experiences to share with everyone.

    Facebook India VP and MD Ajit Mohan highlighted the value of the family of apps for creators to build their communities and contextualised the new announcements. “Creators across India are shaping popular culture, and we are proud that our platforms play a big role in unleashing their creativity and helping them earn a living. The building blocks of a creator economy are coming into place. And we are keen to lean in to enable creators to learn, earn and grow their communities on our platforms,” he said.

    ‘Creator Day India’ saw keynotes from Instagram head Adam Mosseri, who spoke about the success of Reels in India, the importance of India and the work that’s in progress to help creators earn a living on the platform.

    Instagram launched the next phase of the ‘Born on Instagram’ program in an effort to make creators’ access to resources more scalable and democratised. Launched in 2019, the program will now have a significant impact on creators across India who will have the opportunity to learn through a self-paced e-learning course. At the end of the course, they also receive a certificate of course completion, said the statement.

    The company also highlighted its suite of monetisation tools, including paid online events launched during the Covid-19 pandemic to help content creators monetise events such as concerts, cooking classes and virtual tours, among other things.

    Facebook has paired six emerging creators known for their talent with top Indian AR developers to demonstrate the ease of AR creation and highlight how it can trigger trends. “AR filters are a growing use among Instagram users and the ability to create new ones is likely to interest more users on the platform,” said the company.

  • Facebook taps Sanjay Gupta for director of int’l marketing role

    Facebook taps Sanjay Gupta for director of int’l marketing role

    Mumbai: Facebook has appointed Uber’s former executive Sanjay Gupta as director of international marketing, as per his updated Linkedln profile. In his current role, Gupta will be based out of San Francisco, California.

    Gupta commands experience across diverse sectors, including tech, e-commerce, and consumer goods. He has worked in global, regional, as well as, local marketing roles.

    He started his journey with Uber in 2017 as marketing head, India, South Asia. He was promoted to the position of global brand director in 2019 after working as marketing director in the US and Canada for a brief period. Later, he was named marketing director, APAC in July 2020.

    During his two-decade-long career, Gupta worked with many other renowned brands. Prior to Uber, he was at Urban Ladder as chief marketing officer. He spent nearly a decade at Marico which includes nearly three years as marketing lead for its wellness and youth section. He was also associated with Accenture.

    Gupta holds a PGDM in marketing from Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Shri Ram College of Commerce.

  • Netflix eyes foray into video gaming, hires former Facebook exec as gaming VP

    Netflix eyes foray into video gaming, hires former Facebook exec as gaming VP

    New Delhi: Netflix is finally making the big move. Even as media conglomerates across the world slug it out to challenge its dominance in the streaming space, the US giant is gearing up for its next step. According to reports, Netflix is planning to expand beyond its traditional streaming business, and make its foray into video gaming.

    On Wednesday, Netflix hired former Facebook, vice president, Mike Verdu, as VP of game development to lead its video games unit, reported Bloomberg. Verdu was previously Facebook’s vice president in charge of working with developers to bring games and other content to Oculus virtual-reality headsets.

    He has previously served as senior vice president of EA mobile, president of studios and chief creative officer at Kabam, CEO of TapZen, and chief executive officer for Zynga from 2009 to 2012. At Netflix, he will report to chief operating officer Greg Peters.

    The idea is to offer video games on Netflix’s streaming platform within the next year, Bloomberg quoted a person familiar with the situation. According to the report, the games will appear alongside current fare as a new programming genre — similar to what Netflix did with documentaries or stand-up specials.

    The reports suggest Netflix will build its gaming team in the next few months, and it has “already started advertising for game-development related positions on its website”.

    The company now has 208 million paid subscribers across the globe, up from 204 million last quarter, and the latest announcement could be its boldest move yet. The announcement comes at a time, when Netflix is looking at ways to catalyse its growth especially in saturated markets like the US. Analysts contend that the move could also enable the company to justify its price hike in the coming few months.

  • Facebook’s billion-dollar push to woo content creators

    Facebook’s billion-dollar push to woo content creators

    New Delhi: As its rival TikTok continues to rise up the charts, the social media giant Facebook has announced that it is all set to invest over $1 billion to reward creators for creating content on Facebook and Instagram by the end of 2022.

    The announcement is part of the US giant’s big-term plans to up its game against YouTube and TikTok which have been setting new records. The Chinese video sharing app has thrived despite the government bans, and recently became the first non-Facebook mobile app to surpass three billion downloads since 2018 when it became available globally.

    According to mobile analytics firm Sensor Tower, the milestone makes TikTok the fifth nongame app to cross the threshold, following WhatsApp, Messenger, Facebook and Instagram- all owned by Facebook. The US social media giant is now gearing up to compete with its rival’s spectacular rise.

    “From artists to style experts and budding entertainers, creators drive so much of the passion and creativity we see across our apps. By the end of 2022, we plan to invest over $1 billion in programs that give you new ways to earn money for the content you create on Facebook and Instagram,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a FB post. “We want to build the best platforms for millions of creators to make a living. Investing in creators isn’t new for us, but I’m excited to expand this work over time.” 

    The company said the idea is to reward creators, especially those just starting out. The investment will include new bonus programs that pay eligible creators for hitting certain milestones when they use FB’s creative and monetisation tools. The company will also provide seed funding for creators to produce their content. “Our goal is to help as many creators as possible find sustainable, long-term success on our apps,” it said.

    Some programs are already available to select creators by invitation but the platform will now launch a dedicated place for bonuses within the Instagram app soon and later in the Facebook app. Instagram’s bonus programs will include incentives to use Reels,a feature developed post rise of TikTok.

    “This investment brings together our many programs and initiatives across the company that support the creator community and enable them to earn a sustainable income on our apps. It complements our growing suite of monetisation tools,” said the company.

  • Parliamentary panel asks Google, Facebook to comply with new IT rules

    New Delhi: The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology (IT) has directed US tech giants Facebook and Google to comply with the new IT rules, which came into effect on 26 May.

    Both Facebook and Google officials had appeared before the Parliamentary panel on Tuesday regarding the issue of safeguarding citizens’ rights and preventing the misuse of social/online news media platforms. The panel chaired by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor had asked the officials of the social media sites to appear in person on the issue.

    According to media reports, the representatives were made aware of certain loopholes in their existing data protection and privacy policy mechanism and were asked to have stringent safeguards in place to protect the data privacy and data security of their users. The meeting was attended by Facebook India associate general counsel Namrata Singh and the company’s director of public policy Shivnath Thukral.

    Google officials also informed the committee that between January and March 2021, YouTube removed over 9.5 million videos for violating its community guidelines. “95 percent of these videos were first flagged by machines rather than humans. Of those detected by machines, 27.8 percent never received a single view & 39 percent received one and ten views,” officials told the committee, “During this same quarter, YouTube terminated over 2.2 million channels for violating its Community Guidelines. In this same period. YouTube removed more than one billion comments, the majority of which were spam and were detected automatically.”

    While officials from Facebook, Google, and Twitter have also appeared before the panel, representatives of YouTube and other Social Media Intermediaries will also be summoned in the coming weeks over the issue.

    The new IT (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) rules, 2021 were notified on 25 February and came into effect on 26 May. The rules recommend a three-tier mechanism for the regulation of all online media. As per the rules, each significant social media intermediary is required to appoint a chief compliance officer, a nodal contact person for 24×7 coordination with law enforcement agencies, and a resident grievance officer. All three should be resident Indians.

  • WhatsApp onboards Manesh Mahatme as head of payments in India

    Mumbai: Facebook-owned WhatsApp messenger announced the appointment of Manesh Mahatme as the head of payments in India. Mahatme will focus on enhancing the payments experience for users, scaling the service offering, and work towards contributing to WhatsApp’s vision of digital and financial inclusion in India, it said in a statement.

    Mahatme previously served as a senior executive at Amazon India where he led the product and engineering teams for US online retailer’s payments business, Amazon Pay. His earlier professional stints also include Citigroup and Bharti Airtel.

    “We are excited to have Manesh join our WhatsApp India team,” WhatsApp India head Abhijit Bose said. “Manesh has been one of the key innovators driving the growth of digital payments in India over the last decade, and his experience will help us maximise the impact and scale of payments on WhatsApp.”

    WhatsApp, which has more than 500 million Indian users, in November last year received a much-delayed approval from the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) for the launch of its payments system in the country. However, its rollout so far has been capped by regulators at 20 million users. 

    The Facebook subsidiary is set to compete with fintech companies like Paytm, Google Pay, PhonePe, and Amazon Pay.

  • HC refuses to stay CCI notice to WhatsApp against its new privacy policy

    New Delhi: In a major setback for Facebook-owned WhatsApp, the Delhi high court on Wednesday refused to stay the Competition Commission of India’s (CCI) notice to the US-based social media giant seeking information for a probe into its controversial new privacy policy. 

    The vacation bench said an application seeking stay of further steps in the investigation already stands filed in which notice was issued to the Director General of CCI in which no interim relief was given by the division bench on 6 May and is listed for consideration on 9 July, adding that, “at this stage, it does not consider it appropriate to stay the operation of impugned notice dated 4 June at this stage.”

    CCI had launched an investigation into WhatsApp’s new privacy policy on 24 March, amid the raging debate over users’ privacy on social media platforms. The antitrust body had taken a prima facie view that the messaging app’s new policy is in contravention of India’s Competition Act. 

    On the other hand, the two social media platforms had contended that when the top court was looking into the privacy policy, then CCI ought not to have intervened in the issue. WhatsApp had also told the court that private conversations continued to be protected by end-to-end encryption and WhatsApp cannot read what people message each other.

    The US company had sought a stay on the CCI’s 4 June notice seeking information into the privacy policy and urged the court to issue directions to authorities concerned not to take any coercive action against the messaging application till the next date of hearing. Facebook and WhatsApp had also filed a fresh plea against a single judge order issued on 22 April dismissing their pleas against the probe CCI ordered into the instant messaging app’s new privacy policy. 

  • Great Learning launches “Naye Zamaane Ki Degree”

    Mumbai: Edtech company for higher and professional education Great Learning of  launched its new brand campaign #NayeZamaaneKiDegree in a bid to create awareness about the new age degree programs in different specializations offered by various universities through their platform.

    The campaign is targeted towards freshers and young professionals who are looking for career growth. According to the company, it is a creative attempt to draw attention to the fact that people’s lives have changed in countless ways over the years – lifestyle choices, gadgets, lingo etc., but the world of degrees has stayed largely unchanged. But after the formal recognition received to online degrees by UGC under the New Education Policy acquiring the new age degrees has become affordable and accessible, it said.

    Great learning offers UGC recognized new age degrees- MBA, MCA, BBA etc. from sever Indian universities, in cutting- edge specialisations like Data Science, Cloud Computing, Digital Marketing etc. “These degrees will help learners acquire industry relevant skills to score lucrative jobs and build successful careers,” said the company.

    As part of the campaign, the brand has also announced a social media contest for the audience where they are inviting creative minds to submit their version of quirky headlines that would capture the essence of the #NayeZamaaneKiDegree. The brand will also be rewarding some top entries in the contest, which is live on the Facebook, Instagram of the brand.

    Speaking about the campaign Great Learning, chief marketing officer, Aparna Mahesh said, “In a highly volatile digital economy, employers are looking to hire talent with industry relevant skill sets, so they can start adding value right from the start. Just the stamp of a degree is not enough, it is important for young professionals to demonstrate a holistic understanding of fundamentals needed for the job. UGC approved online degrees from reputed institutes, supported by tech platforms like ours will ensure a wide number of students across have access to high quality, industry relevant education. With this campaign, we aim to strike a chord with our target audience on the need to choose the right degree for themselves. The response to this campaign has been overwhelming so far. It is great to see the idea of this communication resonate with so many learners across domains and sectors.”

    The brand started the campaign across its social media channels- Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn from 1 June.

  • WhatsApp appoints grievance officer for India

    WhatsApp appoints grievance officer for India

    KOLKATA: Amid talks over implementation of new IT rules, messaging platform WhatsApp has appointed Paresh B Lal as grievance officer in India.

    WhatsApp has updated the new appointment on its website so users can contact Paresh B through a post box in Banjara Hills at Hyderabad in Telangana state. As per a PTI report, other large digital companies like Google have also started updating their websites to reflect the respective appointments of grievance officers in these organisations. Twitter also informed the Delhi high court that it has appointed the grievance redressal officer.

    The government issued new intermediary guidelines for social media platforms on 25 February with a three-month deadline. It directed intermediaries to appoint a grievance officer based in India for a time-bound redressal of user complaints. As per the rules, a social media intermediary is also required to appoint a chief compliance officer, a nodal contact person for 24×7 coordination. They will also have to publish a monthly compliance report mentioning the details of complaints received and action taken.

    After the rules came into effect on 26 May, the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) wrote to “Significant Social Media Intermediaries” (SSMIs) asking for details of compliance.

    Under the new “the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Ethics Code) Rules, 2021,” SSMIs are defined as social media companies with more than 50 lakh registered users. Hence, Twitter, Facebook, Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Instagram fall under the SSMIs category.