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The world’s five leading tech companies – Google (now Alphabet), Apple, Facebook (now Meta), Amazon and Microsoft – have taken steps to impose significant and (mainly) voluntary sanctions on Russia, in response to its invasion of Ukraine. But the decisions didn’t come unprompted. Ukraine has lobbied the major tech companies in the same way it

Twitter is expanding Birdwatch, its crowd-sourced fact checking project it started as a small and little-publicised pilot programme more than a year ago. The programme lets regular people flag and notate misleading tweets. This is separate from Twitter’s news verification partnerships with The Associated Press and Reuters. Starting Thursday, a small, randomised group of US

Russia is blocking Facebook in its country according to its communications regulator on Friday. Russia said that Meta Platform’s Facebook was being blocked for restricting state-backed channels. In a statement posted on Twitter, Meta’s head of global affairs Nick Clegg said the company would continue to do everything it could to restore its services, it

Facebook and multiple media websites were partially inaccessible in Russia on Friday, as authorities crack down on critical voices and fighting rages in Ukraine. AFP journalists in Moscow were not able to access Facebook, as well as the sites of media outlets Meduza, Deutsche Welle, RFE-RL and the BBC’s Russian-language service. The monitoring NGO GlobalCheck

WhatsApp is found to be working on a new way to let macOS and Windows users react to messages on its desktop version. It could be an expansion to WhatsApp reactions that are reportedly in the works for the last few months. Using reactions, WhatsApp users would be able to react to a message using

Mobile messaging platform WhatsApp banned 18.58 lakh Indian accounts in January on the basis of complaints received from users through its grievances division and the company’s own mechanism to prevent and detect law violators, according to a monthly report published on Tuesday. WhatsApp received grievances against 495 Indian accounts which appealed to ban 285 accounts,

Russia’s state communications regulator said on Tuesday it had reinstated a slowdown of Twitter’s traffic on desktop computers due to what it said were fake posts about Russia’s “special operation” in Ukraine, the Interfax news agency reported. The regulator, Roskomnadzor, which was already restricting traffic on mobile devices, said it had sent more than 1,700

Meta Platforms said a hacking group used Facebook to target a handful of public figures in Ukraine, including prominent military officials, politicians and a journalist, amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country. Meta said in the last 48 hours it had also separately removed a network of about 40 fake accounts, groups and pages across

Twitter is being restricted for some users in Russia, the social media company said in a tweet on Saturday, February 26. On Friday, one day after Russia invaded Ukraine, Moscow said it was partially limiting access to Meta Platforms’ Facebook, accusing it of “censoring” Russian media. Twitter said it was working to keep its service

Moscow said on Friday it was partially limiting access to Meta’s Facebook, accusing it of “censoring” Russian media, announcing the measure a day after Russia invaded Ukraine and the latest in a series of steps against US social media giants. Moscow has also increased pressure on domestic media, threatening to block reports that contain what

Clubhouse will now let users interact in voice rooms over text. For creators, in-room chat will offer another touchpoint with audiences in a room and provide a way to get feedback in real-time. Rooms with text chat enabled will have a dedicated icon at the bottom left of the screen. Clubhouse had started allowing anyone

WhatsApp message reactions have been spotted in development on the desktop beta, suggesting the Meta-owned instant messaging service could release the feature in an upcoming update. Message reactions allow users to quickly assign an emoji “reaction” to a message, and are supported on many popular massaging apps, including Facebook and Instagram, also owned by Meta.

Facebook is launching its short video feature Reels to more than 150 countries, its owner Meta Platforms said on Tuesday, in a move to expand its fastest growing content format. The social media giant, which recently lost a third of its market value after a dismal earnings report, has highlighted Reels as a key priority.

WhatsApp for iOS is reportedly testing the camera media bar feature. The functionality, which allows users to access the photos and videos from the phone quickly was reportedly removed from the previous beta update for unknown reasons. Now, the Meta-owned instant messaging app is bringing back the original scrollable camera media bar. The latest update

Donald Trump’s new social media venture, Truth Social, launched late on Sunday in Apple’s App Store, potentially marking the former president’s return to social media after he was banned from several platforms last year. The app was available to download shortly before midnight ET and was automatically downloaded to Apple devices belonging to users who had

The transition of digital ecosystem to metaverse, where a person will feel immersed in a virtual world, will push data usage by 20 times across the globe by 2032 and telecom operators Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio are suitably placed to benefit from the surge in India, a Credit Suisse report has said.The report said

Snapchat is getting an update that allows users to change their usernames on the photo- and video-sharing platform. The much-awaited functionality will be available on both Android and iOS devices starting February 23. With this change, Snapchatters can get rid of their original usernames without having to create an entirely new account. The company confirmed

WhatsApp is testing a feature that will show the full preview of images and videos that are shared as documents on the Android app, as per a new report. Called ‘Document Preview’, the feature will show a large preview of the content sent over the Meta-owned app. The preview feature currently available for PDF files.