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For representational purposes By Express News Service BENGALURU: Acting swiftly on a false video posted on a social media platform, purportedly of a dedicated Covid-19 ward in Victoria Hospital, Central Crime Branch (CCB) police nabbed a man within a few hours after he posted the video. The accused, Sameer Ullah (46), is a resident of Tilaknagar and a timber merchant. On Saturday night, he posted a video from his Facebook profile, Saif Adds. The video is of scores of people wearing masks, gathered in a small space in a hospital, and the person filming it expresses concern that it is a threat to medical staff and patients. Saif Adds claimed it was a scene from Victoria Hospital in Bengaluru. Within minutes, the video went viral. Police, who took up the matter seriously, registered a case with the Cyber Crime police station, under provisions of the Information Technology Act, National Disaster Management Act and IPC. Sleuths zeroed in on the profile of Saif Adds. “Through the IP address and other details, he was traced to Tilaknagar and arrested on Sunday afternoon,” an official said. “The accused claimed that he had got the video on WhatsApp, and the sender had said it was Victoria Hospital, and he posted it without verifying. We are trying to find out who spread this false information,” the official added. JCP (Crime) Sandeep Patil said, “The video which went viral about Victoria Hospital is fake, and has no link to Victoria Hospital or any hospital in Karnataka. People should be careful not to share or forward any false video or message about the pandemic.” The profile of the accused revealed that he had links with some political leaders, and had shared photos of himself with a former minister and police officer. Stay up to date on all…

Australian internet community Ripple has been selected to join the global Facebook Community Accelerator program. Ripple GI, an Australian website and internet group that matches young people with curated career opportunities, is one of 13 web-based communities from across the Asia-Pacific region selected for the prestigious Facebook Community Accelerator program, a global development initiative that aims to help young go-getters expand their skills, influence and communities. Facebook’s Community Accelerator is a six-month program that will give Ripple access to global experts,  coaches and resources to create a customised curriculum for community growth. Ripple, which started in 2016 and has almost 11, 000 members will receive approximately $US30,000, which will be used to enhance both the reach and impact of their Australian community. Grace Clapham, Facebook’s head of community partnerships in the Asia-Pacific region, says Ripple was chosen from a vast array of other communities to join the program. “We received hundreds of applications across four countries in APAC – Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand,” Grace says.  “In the end, it boiled down to communities that are already driving positive, lasting change, but need help to scale their efforts and grow in size. We’re excited to welcome a diverse group of community leaders and look forward to working with them to meet their goals and create further impact in their communities.” Facebook will hand out up to $US3 million globally for the program, helping these selected communities to implement growth plans for their networks with assistance from a dedicated team from Facebook. The Community Accelerator is part of the Facebook Community Leadership Program – a global initiative investing in the leaders who are building communities around the world, bringing people together, offering encouragement, and driving change. Ripple supports purpose-driven young people to harness “their agency” and create impact in every sphere of…

BREAKING NEWS CAL FIRE responding to wildfires near Susanville and Yreka Full Story BREAKING NEWS Eight more cases of Covid-19 in Shasta County announced on Saturday Full Story

Facebook Messenger on iOS and Android has been upgraded with ability for users to share their screen with others.Facebook is expanding Messenger’s screen sharing capability, first available on desktop, to the iOS and Android mobile apps.Users can share their screen with other people one-on-one or in a group video call with up to eight participants.This feature is also being rolled out to Messenger Rooms which allows for up to 16 people in a chat at the same time.“Today, we’re excited to share that we’re expanding the availability of Messenger’s screen sharing feature in video calls and Messenger Rooms to our mobile apps…We know people are trying to stay connected more than ever and screen sharing is the latest feature we’re rolling out to bring people closer together.”Here’s more about how screen sharing in Facebook Messenger works.Screen Sharing in Facebook MessengerUsers can share a live view of their screen for others to see, which will show participants in the chat everything the user is doing on their mobile device.“Screen sharing lets you share a live view of your screen so you can share virtually anything together. Whether you want to share memories from your camera roll, shop together online, co-browse social media, and more…”Screen sharing was previously available on the desktop version of Facebook Messenger. This marks the first time screen sharing has been an option in the mobile app or Messenger Rooms.Speaking of Messenger Rooms – which is an app designed specifically for group chats – it will soon be upgraded with the ability to screen share with up to 50 people.Users who create a Messenger Room will be able to specify who has permission to screen share with the group.The ability to screen share in a Messenger Room can be given to just the room creator, or select participants, or…

SAO PAULO/BRASILIA (Reuters) - Allowing millions of Brazilian users of Facebook’s (FB.O) WhatsApp to send money as easily as texts seemed a golden opportunity for the world’s largest social media company. FILE PHOTO: Brazil's Central Bank President Roberto Campos Neto speaks near Brazil's Economy Minister Paulo Guedes while leaving Alvorada Palace in Brasilia, Brazil April 27, 2020. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino/File PhotoThe ubiquitous messaging service was finally entering the financial services arena with a payment service in Latin America’s largest economy, after years of questions over how Facebook would make money from it. The June launch, years in the planning, was meant to be the pilot for a potential global rollout - but eight days after going live, the central bank pulled the plug on it. The shock decision underscores the challenge for Facebook in trying to win over financial regulators and the complexities facing watchdogs in assessing the risks of letting tech giants, with their vast network of users, loose in their world. In Brazil, it also raises questions about the communications around the launch. WhatsApp executives and central bank officials had held at least three meetings in the previous 21 months, including two in the week running up to the launch. In the first time he has spoken in detail about the decision, Central Bank President Roberto Campos Neto told Reuters the regulator had not determined how to deal with the proposed payment model - a new phenomenon in Brazil, which has no card money transfer service operated via an app. “Prior to the launch, there was a meeting in which WhatsApp kind of explained its plan, but the central bank was taken by surprise with the launch on June 15,” he said in an interview. The regulator - which said it never received a formal launch request - suspended…

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published. On April 3, Terrence K. Williams, a politically conservative actor and comedian who’s been praised by President Donald Trump, assured his nearly 3 million followers on Facebook that Democrats would light ballots on fire or throw them away. Wearing a red “Keep America Great” hat, Williams declared, “If you mail in your vote, your vote will be in Barack Obama’s fireplace.” The video has been viewed more than 350,000 times. On May 8, Peggy Hubbard, a Navy veteran and police officer who this year sought the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois, warned on Facebook that the country was heading toward civil war. “Your democracy, your freedom is being stripped away from you, and if you allow that then everything this country stood for, fought for, bled for is all in vain.” The cause? California’s recent expansion of voting by mail: “The only way you will be able to vote in the upcoming election in November is by mail only,” Hubbard said. The video has attracted more than 209,000 views. On June 27, Pamela Geller, an anti-Muslim activist with nearly 1.3 million followers, weighed in. “Mail-in ballots guarantee that the Democrats will commit voter fraud,” she said on Facebook. There’s no evidence for any of these statements. While California will mail absentee ballots to all registered voters, polling places will also be available. Voter fraud is exceedingly rare, including with mail-in ballots. A recent Washington Post analysis analyzed three states with all-mail elections — Colorado, Oregon and Washington — and found just 372 potential irregularities among 14.6 million votes, or 0.0025%. Facebook’s community standards ban “misrepresentation of who can vote, qualifications for voting, whether a…

Facebook's European headquarters in Dublin's Grand Canal district. Photo: PAThe European Union’s top court on Thursday found that a key framework used to transfer user data by technology giants to the US was invalid, ruling that it does not provide adequate privacy protection to EU citizens.The European Court of Justice nevertheless partially sided with Facebook (FB) by ruling in favour of key contracts used to transfer the data of the bloc’s citizens to other countries, even as it opened up the social media giant to further challenges and called into question their use for transfers to the US.The invalidation of the framework, known as the Privacy Shield, is a blow for the EU, which had hoped that the framework would afford EU citizens the protections outlined within the bloc’s charter of fundamental rights while still allowing data transfers to firms in the US.READ MORE: Apple wins appeal in top court against €13bn EU tax rulingThe core of the issue was on the contradiction between US law, which requires social media firms to hand over user data to national security agencies, and both the charter and the GDPR regulation, which give every EU citizen substantial data privacy rights.It covers about 5,000 US companies, including Facebook, Google (GOOG), and Twitter (TWTR), that handle the data of EU citizens.The European Court of Justice found that contracts known as standard contractual clauses — which are far more routinely used for data transfers than the Privacy Shield — were valid, however.But the court also outlined ways in which specific clauses could be struck down, ruling that such clauses are legal only if the data protections they promise can be assured under the laws of the countries where the data of EU citizens is sent. “Everyone is focusing on Facebook as a familiar household name, but in reality, this is…

Home >Companies >News >Facebook whitepaper says current privacy communication practices insufficient The whitepaper, authored by Erin Egan, vice president and chief privacy officer, Public Policy at Facebook, is part of the Privacy Matters series the social media company has been running (Bloomberg) 1 min read . Updated: 16 Jul 2020, 11:40 AM IST Prasid Banerjee The whitepaper though doesn’t talk about the changes the company is making, and is more of a thought experiment and makes suggestions about how companies can look at designing privacy policies in future NEW DELHI: Facebook on Thursday published a whitepaper calling for privacy policies that are clearer and easier to understand. The whitepaper, authored by Erin Egan, vice president and chief privacy officer, Public Policy at Facebook, is part of the Privacy Matters series the social media company has been running to explain changes it’s making to its privacy practices. The whitepaper though doesn’t talk about the changes the company is making, and is more of a thought experiment and makes suggestions about how companies can look at designing privacy policies in future. “In short, the current practices for informing people about how companies use their data, and the laws setting out transparency requirements, may be insufficient to provide meaningful notice to people," wrote Egan. The paper lays out three questions around how privacy communications are designed, including how organizations, regulators and stakeholders can work together to develop new ways for communicating about privacy, legal and regulatory support for designing “people-centered" practices and how regulators can hold organizations accountable. “Transparency efforts by organizations, as well as the policy frameworks that underlie them, must be built to anticipate and meet varying needs," the whitepaper said. “There are no easy answers, nor has anyone ‘solved’ the problem of how to design transparency to address these needs,"…

Facebook Inc. (FB) has boosted production on its Oculus virtual reality (VR) headset to nearly double the amount compared to last year.According to a July 15 report from Nikkei Asian Review, the social media site has reacted to the uptick in COVID-19 cases throughout the world by calling for a production increase in the second half of 2020. This would be an increase of 50% compared to its entire produced amount for all of 2019.Nikkei’s source says that “the production forecast for the second half of this year could reach at least two million units, which is already around 1.5 times more than its total production output last year.”Facebook bought Oculus for $2 billion in 2014. Meanwhile, other tech companies have also introduced their VR versions with Sony (SNE) launching its PlayStation VR in 2015. Additionally, HTC, Samsung Electronics, and Huawei Technologies all introduced various types of headsets later using smartphones for VR screens. Despite the competition, Oculus has become the market leader claiming near 35% market share.On a Q1 earnings call, April 29, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that ad revenue grew 17% annually during the quarter, while its other revenue was “driven primarily by sales of Oculus products.” He stated that Oculus reached $297 million for the quarter which was up 80% from a year ago. According to Zuckerberg, videoconferencing tools could “accelerate some of the trends” in VR despite Oculus’ use being primarily for video games. In light of the pandemic, game console makers like Nintendo (NTDOY) have experienced increased demand for its portable Nintendo Switch device amidst supply constraints. With government lockdowns in Malaysia and the Philippines, a shortage resulted in parts that led to overall delays in production. Third-party sellers cashed-in on the moment by selling the game device for more than double the price on…

A Facebook post by Plum School Director Amy Wetmore has some borough officials calling for her resignation. The post in question was made on July 8 by the school board’s finance committee liaison in a private page called “Black Lives Matter In Plum Boro.” It appears to have been made to start a conversation about race while promoting an article and several books on the subject. However, a segment of her post did not sit well with Plum Mayor Harry Schlegel and Councilman Mike Doyle, both Republicans, and both called for the Plum Democratic Committee chairwoman to step down as school director. “For those who haven’t seen it, there is a heated debate about someone implying Republicans are racist,” the post read. “I would take that statement even further. If you are white and you are living in the United States, you are racist. I say this as a white woman.” Schlegel said at Monday night’s council meeting that her statement paints a very broad negative brush. “Every person in this room, according to her, this council, our police department, are racists,” Schlegel said. “I’m not going to tolerate that. We do not need divisiveness in this community. We have not had any issues like that in the past.” He also said Wetmore’s comments carry more weight as a school board member, and referenced one who resigned last year due to backlash over his social media posts. Brian Wisniewski, a Republican, shared an anti-Muslim post on his personal Facebook page. He stepped down last February. “Elected officials are personally responsible for all their comments,” the mayor said. “They have the freedom of speech. … What is applied to a conservative Republican must be applied to a liberal Democrat. There are no double standards here in Plum. “Inappropriate, defamatory and insulting…