ITV

Tag: social media

  • 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. 

  • Koo inks partnership with CleverTap to engage more users

    KOLKATA: Homegrown micro-blogging platform Koo has announced its partnership with CleverTap, a SaaS-based mobile marketing company. The decision follows a steady success of Koo’s partnership with CleverTap for their first product, Vokal.

    This partnership is aimed at engaging app users via push and in-app notifications using CleverTap’s real-time, data-driven insights promising high user engagement and retention.

    According to the Contribution of Smartphones to Digital Governance in India report by The India Cellular and Electronics Association (ICEA) in partnership with KPMG India, India is expected to hit 829 million smartphone users by 2022. This increased mobile adoption presents marketers and brands with a massive opportunity to not only reach out to current and potential customers but also enhance their engagement and deepen loyalty by delivering a seamless brand experience.

    Riding on this opportunity, CleverTap is aiming to leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to personalise the customer experience using real-time behavioural data. CleverTap’s technology offers live user segmentation, sophisticated omni channel campaigns, and deliverability of 23 million push notifications a minute. Furthermore, the company offers 12 different channels for engagement, it said on Tuesday.

    CleverTap co-founder and CEO Sunil Thomas says, “Koo’s understanding of user experience and expertise in promoting regional content is uniquely complementary to CleverTap’s omnichannel marketing platform. With our passion for enabling brands to deliver highly successful marketing campaigns and delightful end-user experiences, we are excited to help Koo gain a deeper understanding of user behaviour that will help them achieve their goal of connecting with 100 million users this year.”

    As per the Google KPMG report, the Indian internet user base will increase to 735 million by the end of 2021. Indian language internet users are expected to grow at a CAGR of 18 per cent to reach 536 million by the end of 2021, while English users are expected to grow at only three per cent reaching 199 million within the same period.

    In a market dominated by global apps like Twitter and Facebook, Koo is trying to emerge as a differentiator by promoting vernacular content while reaching out to multilingual audiences across the country.

    Commenting on the partnership, Koo’s co-founder, Mayank Bidawatka said, “Our partnership with CleverTap will be instrumental in creating actionable user segments and keeping users engaged on our platform. We believe that CleverTap’s real-time insights and omnichannel solutions will not only help us establish a stronger connection with our existing users, but also attract more customers. Through this partnership, we are confident in our ability to increase clickthrough rates and achieve a double digit increase in the overall app sessions”.

  • Tussle between Centre and Twitter intensifies

    KOLKATA: The conflict between Twitter and the Indian government gets even murkier as the microblogging site has “failed to comply” with new IT rules. According to multiple reports, Twitter has lost its legal protection as an intermediary over non-compliance with the rules, which could impact its business overall as India remains one of the most critical markets for the platform. According to an estimate, the platform has a user base of 1.75 crore in India, which is one of its top five markets.

    “Numerous queries are arising as to whether Twitter is entitled to safe harbour provision. However, the simple fact of the matter is that Twitter has failed to comply with the Intermediary Guidelines that came into effect from the 26th of May,” union information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad tweeted on Wednesday.

    Prasad further added it has deliberately chosen the path of non-compliance despite multiple opportunities. His statement amid the reports of Twitter losing its “safe harbour” immunity has raised the question on Twitter’s future in India.

    On the other side, Twitter said that it appointed an interim chief compliance officer in line with the new rules and it would share the details with the IT ministry soon. 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.

    “These rules are only about setting out the procedures that need to be followed by the intermediaries if they want to continue to get the protection of safe harbour under section 79. The principle of intermediaries is that ordinarily, you will be not liable to whatever content you carry because it is presumed the platforms do not know what they are carrying. Therefore, the platforms will get the benefit of the doubt. But the benefit of the doubt will only extend to the situation where you are told this is wrong and you need to take it down,” TMT Law Practice managing partner Abhishek Malhotra explained.

    Twitter has already been named in an FIR concerning an incident in Ghaziabad’s Loni. “There is no communal angle to the incident in Loni where a man was thrashed and his beard was chopped off. The following entities — The Wire, Rana Ayyub, Mohammad Zubair, Dr Shama Mohammed, Saba Naqvi, Maskoor Usmani, Slaman Nizami — without checking the fact, started giving communal colour to the incident on Twitter and suddenly they started spreading messages to disrupt the peace and bring differences between the religious communities,” the Ghaziabad Police said in the FIR.

    India is one of the top five markets for Twitter. There are apprehensions that Twitter can be even banned if this tussle continues. The platform recently faced the heat in Nigeria.

    “Twitter admittedly is yet to comply with IT Rules, 2021 and as the law stands as on date, the government may decide to revoke its ‘intermediary’ status thereby taking away the immunity enjoyed by it against the content published on the platform by its millions of users,” partner at Bharucha & Partners Kaushik Moitra said.

    However, any action initiated by the Government must be tested in the freedom of speech and expression enshrined in the Constitution of India, he noted further.

  • Twitter appoints interim chief compliance officer in India

    KOLKATA: Microblogging site Twitter has appointed an interim chief compliance officer in line with the new IT rules which came into effect on 26 May. The company will share the details with the IT ministry soon, it said on Tuesday.

    The company “continues to make every effort to comply with new guidelines and is keeping IT Ministry apprised of progress at every step,” reported PTI quoting a Twitter spokesperson.

    Earlier the US company said that it has assured the government that it is making every effort to comply with the new IT media guidelines.

    Twitter’s move comes days after the government issued “one last notice” to the company.

    “The provisions for significant social media intermediaries under the Rules have already come into force on 26 May and it has been more than a week but Twitter has refused to comply with the provisions of these rules,” the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) had written to Twitter’s deputy general counsel, Jim Baker.

    As per new rules, any failure to comply with the guidelines could lead to exemption from liability under section 79 of the IT Act, 2000. This essentially means that the platform could be held responsible for content posted by the users.

    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.

  • No exemption for mainstream media from new IT rules, says MIB

    New Delhi: The ministry of information and broadcasting has refused to grant an exemption to the digital news content of mainstream television channels and print media from the ambit of the new IT Rules, 2021 and asked all the digital news publishers and the OTT platforms to comply with the new rules without any misapprehensions.

    Asserting that the rationale for bringing the websites of the organisations under the ambit of the law is well-reasoned, the ministry said, making an exception of the nature proposed “will be discriminatory to the digital news publishers who do not have a traditional TV/print platform.”

    The order dated 10 June provides clarification to digital news publishers, publishers of online curated content or OTT platforms, and associations of digital media publishers who had requested the government for an exemption under the new rules, highlighting that they are already “sufficiently regulated.”

    “Since the code of ethics requires such digital platforms to follow the existing norms/content regulations, which are in vogue for the traditional print and TV media, there is no additional regulatory burden for such entities,” the ministry stated, “Accordingly, the request for exempting the digital news content of such organisations from the ambit of digital media rules 2021 cannot be acceded to.”

    The ministry also took note of the fact that traditional TV and print media are already registered with the government either under the Press and Registration Books Act or the Uplinking and Downlinking Guidelines of 2011, and added, that they can request the same self-regulatory bodies to serve as the Level II of the self-regulatory mechanism. But, before that, they need to ensure consistency with the Digital Media Rules, 2021, it added.

    The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 that into effect on 26 May recommend a three-tier mechanism for the regulation of all online media. Under the rules, the digital publishers are required to take urgent steps for appointing a grievance officer, if not done, and place all relevant details in the public domain. “They also need to constitute self-regulatory bodies through mutual consultation so that the grievances are addressed at the level of publishers or the self-regulating bodies themselves,” the ministry said. More than 500 publishers have already submitted their details in the requisite format, it added. 

    The News Broadcasters Association (NBA) which had earlier sought exemption from the new IT rules, issued a statement on Friday stating that all current and prospective members have fully complied with the requirements of new rules.
     

  • Major websites crash after global internet outage

    KOLKATA: A global internet outage hit social media, government, and news websites on Tuesday morning. Many renowned news outlets including the Financial Times, the New York Times, CNN and Bloomberg News were down.

    According to some media reports, a technical glitch in a private CDN (Content Delivery Network) caused the outage. “Error 503 Service Unavailable” message flashed across affected websites. Amazon.com Inc’s retail website also suffered due to the outage, even as Twitch experienced issues. Several Reddit users also reported issues with the platform. Ireland, Germany, United Kingdom, United States, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore were the countries mainly impacted by the outage.

    Some reports have traced the problem to Fastly, a cloud computing services provider that runs an “edge cloud”, which is designed to speed up loading times for websites, protect them from denial-of-service attacks, and help them deal with sudden bursts in traffic. “We’re currently investigating potential impact to performance with our CDN services,” Fastly said in an error message. Later, it announced on its status page that the issue was identified and a fix has been implemented.

  • Clubhouse takes off in India amid pandemic

    KOLKATA: With large parts of the country still under lockdown, people have begun exploring new virtual spaces to interact with each other. Within few days of its launch for androids in India, the social media app, Clubhouse recorded over one million Android downloads in the country pitching India as one of the top markets for this new emerging audio-based app.

    “India seems to love it,” said Zoo Media and Foxymoron co-founder Pratik Gupta. “The platform is acting as both casual and formal setup to discuss diverse topics, so it’s an apt media vehicle for brands to latch onto. Early brand movers will gain an advantage; both in terms of scale & cost-effectiveness, right from the start. The concept is new – it’s almost like a talk show where people are free to express themselves.”

    What are the opportunities for brands?

    The opportunities lie in being able to either host a branded room or sponsor rooms that are hosted by prominent creators or simply aid and join third-party rooms for now. According to Grapes Digital national business head Rajeesh Rajagopalan, marketers may think about running their campaigns on the app going forward because the elements like chat apps, conference calls or podcasts would help marketers/brands to reach a diverse set of consumers.

    “For a marketeer or an advertiser, Clubhouse presents a great opportunity to establish the brand and promote products, services, or events,” said Isobar India COO Gopa Kumar, adding that it gives a voice to an authentic narrative that is inherent in the platform as all the people and the conversations are real. “There are opportunities to share your brand purpose, story, connect with consumers at large, get their feedback, act as a focus group to know more about how and what they feel about the brand. Brands can start small and start seeing how they can establish a connection with the audience and push the narrative, cause, or story.”

    Although the conversations are voice delivered like podcasts, the main difference is the chats are live. Since there is no recording, users tend to be hooked on to its content for long as they are anticipating and looking for conversations about topics they are interested in—whether to listen or share. “It is an extension of a Podcast hosted in a virtual venue around a limitless audience. It has reinforced the age-old power of human voice emotions,” Vizeum India ex-CEO Himanka Das said. Its key attribute is an audio medium, which sets it apart from established social media and messaging platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Sharechat, TikTok, Moj, WhatsApp, and YouTube.

    The Indian market has the appetite to support audio-only platforms. But the app needs to localise its feature for the Indian market and tap into the regional languages more to capitalise on the audience, believe experts. “Any such social media platform will house rich data in these couple of months to deploy deep learning algorithms to derive actionable insights from consumer cohorts based on interest, interactions, and habits. This can bring magic to enable brands to curate audio content to drive structured conversations. This will be key to drive the metric for monetising for brands,” added Das.

    How influencers can leverage the platform?

    According to experts, it has become an important platform for influencers and creators to engage with their fan base. Influencers will play a critical role in driving conversation and traffic, once the initial hype starts to fade away. The width of content & topics available on the platform makes it an amazing platform for influencers to participate. For the audience, it gives them a sense of being up-close and personal with their favourite influencers.

    “Clubhouse is a peer-to-peer network that can be leveraged by the influencer community to interact with the user base,” said Buzzoka CEO and co-founder Ashutosh Harbola. For example, they can quickly host a Room with 200 followers on the app. However, it won’t be a primary channel for influencer marketing. It can always be an extension for influencers to engage with the users in the long-term, he added. Considerably, Clubhouse now allows Instagram, Twitter profiles to be linked to the user profile.

    Monetisation opportunities:

    There are plenty of opportunities for brands to exploit the platform but it seems that Clubhouse may not restrict its monetisation to advertising revenue only. The app is looking to expand into payments, ticketing, subscription, ticketing, tipping, Clubhouse co-founder Rohan Seth said recently.

    “Clubhouse will continue to focus on its audience expansion and methods to keep the creators incentivized & provide tools for better content creation. Clubhouse has recently launched Clubhouse Payments for direct payments to creators and has less focus on advertising revenue. These are still early days, and I think that the model that the business will adopt will be creator & payment to creator focussed. Brands will probably latch onto the creators through the platform itself, rather than opening it up to buying advertising space,” Zoo Media’s Gupta commented.

    According to Isobar’s Kumar it is too early to comment on monetisation opportunities as the app is soon to end invite system, to be open to all. The very fact it was an invite-only medium early on and had an exclusivity element, attracted many users, and also promise privacy. Hence, the industry needs to wait to see how the platform and its users evolve over some time.

    While the Indian government is in a standoff with few social media platforms regarding the implementation of new Information Technology Rules, Clubhouse founders expressed their willingness to comply with the new rules that came into effect on 26 May in a virtual press meet.

    In a country driven by freedom of speech, one has to keep a close watch on the audio content responsibly with the new social media regulations. This is also good for the brand safety going forward, highlighted experts.

  • Making all efforts to comply with new IT media guidelines, says Twitter

     New Delhi : US tech giant Twitter on Monday said that it has assured the government that it is making every effort to comply with the new IT media guidelines. The microblogging site said it has already shared an overview of the progress with the government.

    A Twitter spokesperson said that the company has been and remains deeply committed to India and serving the vital public conversation taking place on the service and will continue its constructive dialogue with the Indian government, reported ANI.

    “We will continue our constructive dialogue with the Indian government,” the spokesperson added. According to media reports, Twitter has sought more time in wake of the pandemic situation in the country.

    Union ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) had on Saturday issued ‘one last notice’ to Twitter Inc asking it to immediately comply with the new IT rules, failing which it could face stern action and lose exemption from liability under section 79 of the IT Act, 2000.

    According to the ministry, the US company has not informed about the details of the chief compliance officer. The resident grievance officer and nodal contact person nominated was not an employee of Twitter Inc in India, as required by rules. Furthermore, the office address of Twitter Inc shared by the company was that of a law firm in India, which was also not as per rules.

    The new IT (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) rules, 2021 came into effect on 26 May, but Twitter has refused to comply with the provisions of these Rules, the government said.

    The rules recommend a three-tier mechanism for 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.

    Meanwhile, Facebook on Monday named Spoorthi Priya as its chief grievance officer on it’s website and shared her email ID. Google and WhatsApp have already shared the details of their chief grievance officers as per the rules.

    India is a major market for global digital platforms. As per data shared by the government, India has 53 crore WhatsApp users, 41 crore Facebook subscribers, 21 crore Instagram clients, while 1.75 crore account holders are on Twitter.

  • India’s Koo eyes expansion in Nigeria after the country bans Twitter

    KOLKATA:Twitter’s Indian substitute social media platform Koo is expanding its operations in Nigeria by adding local languages, besides leveraging the ‘talk to type’ feature on its application. The move comes after the microblogging site Twitter was banned in the African country.

    “Now the platform is available in Nigeria. We’re thinking of enabling the local languages there too. What say?,” co-founder and CEO Aprameya Radhakrishna asked Saturday.

    The federal government of Nigeria suspended the operations of Twitter indefinitely in the country on 4 June. Notably, the ban was announced two days after the microblogging site deleted an “abusive” tweet made by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, and suspended his account for 12 hours.

    As per a PTI report, Koo’s Radhakrishna said the platform is keen on making inroads into the Nigerian market. Now, the country has an opportunity for microblogging sites, he added. Koo will abide by the local laws of each country that it operates in, he mentioned.

    Koo was founded in March 2020 as a micro-blogging platform in Indian languages. It also rolled out the ‘talk to type’ feature in March, so anyperson may share their thoughts easily with minimal keyboard interface, in a targeted drive to tap regional markets.

    The platform started getting attention at the beginning of this year amid the Twitter-Indian government standoff.

    Endorsed by government officials, Koo has verified handles of MeitY, MyGov, Digital India, India Post, National Informatics Centre (NIC), National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT), Common Services Center, UMANG app, Digi Locker, National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) and Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) to name a few.

    Twitter has been constantly in conflict with the Indian government especially now, over the compliance of the new IT rules. The government on Saturday issued ‘one last notice’ to Twitter Inc asking it to immediately comply with the new IT rules, failing which it could face stern action and lose exemption from liability under section 79 of the IT Act, 2000.

    It is will be interesting for not only Nigerian but also Indian social media users to see how Koo fares, as a replacement brand for the banned Twitter in Nigeria.

    In similar fashion, when TikTok, the Chinese application was banned in India, another Indian application Chingari was able to leverage itself with some level of success in India. Even Chingari enjoyed apparent Indian government approval. 

    If Koo succeeds in Nigeria, it will bolster its confidence to compete with Twitter in India with renewed vigor. And in the eventuality of an Indian ban on Twitter over the current noncompliance of the new IT rules, even seek to become the preferred alternative choice over Indian social media. 

    As per reports, Koo has already complied with the new rules and shared the necessary information with the government.

  • Govt serves ‘one last notice’ to Twitter to ‘immediately’ comply with IT rules

    New Delhi: The government on Saturday issued ‘one last notice’ to Twitter Inc asking it to immediately comply with the new IT rules, failing which it could face stern action and lose exemption from liability under section 79 of the IT Act, 2000. This essentially means that the platform could be held responsible for content posted by the users.

    “The provisions for significant social media intermediaries under the Rules have already come into force on 26 May and it has been more than a week but Twitter has refused to comply with the provisions of these rules,” the ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY) wrote to Twitter’s deputy general counsel, Jim Baker on Saturday.

    According to the ministry, the US company has not informed about the details of the chief compliance officer. The resident grievance officer and nodal contact person nominated is not an employee of Twitter Inc in India, as required by rules. Furthermore, the office address of Twitter Inc shared by the company is that of a law firm in India, which is also not as per rules.

    Twitter’s refusal to comply with the rules demonstrated its “lack of commitment and efforts towards providing a safe experience for the people of India on its platform,” it said. The ministry highlighted that the US tech giant has been operational in India for over a decade and “it is beyond belief that it has still doggedly refused to create mechanism that will enable the people of India to resolve their issues on the platform in a timely and transparent manner and through fair processes, by India based, clearly identified resources.”

    Though with effect from 26 May, “consequences follow” given Twitter’s non-compliance with rules, however, the ministry wrote, as a “gesture of goodwill”, it is giving Twitter Inc one last notice to immediately comply with the rules, failing which it will be liable for consequences as per the IT Act and other penal laws of India.

    The new IT (Guidelines for Intermediaries and Digital Media Ethics Code) rules, 2021, recommend a three-tier mechanism for 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.

    The intermediaries are also required to prominently publish on their website, app or both, the name of the grievance officer and his/her contact details as well as the mechanism by which a user or a victim may make a complaint. The grievance officer would be required to acknowledge the complaint within 24 hours and resolve it within 15 days from its receipt. The government has also asked the significant social media intermediaries providing services primarily in the nature of messaging “to enable identification of the first originator of the information.”