Social

Snapchat is rolling out a new original game called Bitmoji Paint. The game includes painting and cutely grotesque customisable avatars. Users can paint squares present in the grid as a shared canvas. Announcing Bitmoji Paint in a press release, Snap Inc. said that the game will allow millions of players to “come together simultaneously to

Twitter said on Saturday it had “inadvertently” limited engagements for a brief period on US President Donald Trump’s tweets with “disputed” labels but later reversed its action. Some users on the social media platform had noticed earlier on Saturday that the ability to like, re-tweet or reply to Trump’s tweets with a “disputed” label was not

A US appeals court on Monday will hear arguments in the Trump administration’s appeal of a judge’s order that blocked a ban on Chinese-owned TikTok from domestic app stores. US District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington on September 27 blocked the Commerce Department order hours before it was to prohibit new downloads of the short video-sharing

Reddit said on Sunday it has acquired short-form video sharing platform Dubsmash, becoming the latest company to expand in a space dominated by Chinese-owned TikTok. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but a spokeswoman for Reddit said the acquisition was based on a combination of cash and stock. The success of ByteDance’s

The pandemic has shuttered concert halls around much of the globe, but that hasn’t stopped musical theater aficionados from flexing their creative muscles — on TikTok, of course. A crowdsourced musical based on the 2007 Disney-Pixar animated film Ratatouille is now set to hit the virtual stage, after thousands of TikTok creators posted original songs, dances,

Twitter saw gaming conversations nearly double on the platform in this pandemic year, which isn’t unexpected given the lockdowns and social distancing. It’s also no surprise that multipla games such as PUBG and Among Us dominated the conversations, as one of the few ways to safely and responsibly connect with friends. The conversation about gaming

TikTok overtook Facebook to become the most downloaded app globally in 2020, as per an industry report on mobile trends. TikTok jumped the list by three spots and is projected by analytical firm App Annie to break into the 1 billion monthly active user club next year. Facebook’s apps, however, dominated the top five most

Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are down in some parts of the world. Multiple users have reported the downtime on platforms including Twitter, and outage tracking platforms have also noted spikes. The social media giant is yet to provide an official response to the complaints. The issues seem to have largely affected users in Europe. However,

Facebook was sued by US antitrust officials and a coalition of states that want to break up the company by unwinding its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, deals the government says were part of a campaign to illegally crush competition. The Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general led by New York said they filed antitrust

Twitter and three other US tech companies have urged the EU to take a flexible approach towards harmful and illegal online content instead of blanket rules requiring takedown, saying this would preserve an open internet. US Internet media group IAC/InterActiveCorp-owned online video platform Vimeo, nonprofit browser maker Mozilla and Automattic, owner of online publishing tool

The Delhi High Court Wednesday sought response of the Centre, Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDAI), and National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) on a PIL seeking a detailed legal framework for regulating operations of fintech companies such as Amazon, Facebook, and Google,

Cisco has revamped its Webex video meeting software as it targets a bigger share of the booming online collaboration market, adding new features such as background noise cancellation and a transcription service. Webex currently has more than 600 million meeting participants, nearly double the number it recorded in March before the coronavirus pandemic sparked a

WhatsApp has introduced ‘carts’, to further ease shopping on the instant messaging platform. The new update comes almost a month after the Facebook-owned company brought a shopping button to its app to let users easily browse catalogues offered by businesses on the platform and place orders. With the advent of carts, WhatsApp has moved a

Twitter has released its most tweeted categories and hastags of the year in India. Virat Kohli’s tweet announcing Anoushka Sharma’s pregnancy was the most liked tweet of the year, whereas Tamil actor Vijay’s selfie with fans was most retweeted tweet in India. #COVID19 was the most tweeted about current affairs topic, whereas #StudentLivesMatter was the

The coronavirus pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement topped the list of conversation topics on Twitter in a tumultuous year, the messaging platform said Monday. In a summary of trends, Twitter said the hashtag #Covid19 and other variations were tweeted nearly 400 million times, while #StayHome was the third biggest hashtag of the year.

Facebook on Thursday said it is revising its systems to prioritise blocking slurs against Black people, gays and other groups historically targeted by vitriol, no longer automatically filtering out barbs aimed broadly at whites, men or Americans. The change in Facebook’s algorithm is a shift from the social network’s ethnicity and gender-neutral system that removed

Facebook on Thursday said it would remove false claims about COVID-19 vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts, following a similar announcement by Alphabet’s YouTube in October. The move expands Facebook’s current rules against falsehoods and conspiracy theories about the pandemic. The social media company says it takes down coronavirus misinformation that poses

The Trump administration on Thursday sued Facebook, accusing it of discriminating against American workers by favoring immigrant applicants for thousands of high-paying jobs.  The Department of Justice’s lawsuit opens a new front in the administration’s push against tech companies, and in its clampdown on immigration, as President Donald Trump enters his final weeks in office. The suit

The Trump administration on Friday opted not to grant ByteDance a new extension of an order requiring the Chinese company to divest TikTok’s US assets, but talks will continue over the short video-sharing app’s fate, two sources briefed on the matter said. A Treasury Department representative said late on Friday the Committee on Foreign Investment in

Twitter is rolling back its threaded conversation layout that was launched earlier this year. The company said that the feedback it received from users on the new design was not very positive. This layout showed replies to the original post with thin grey lines to form a thread. Twitter said that it will now work

YouTube is introducing new features to its platform to support diverse communities and encourage respectful interactions. The streaming platform will warn users when a comment they are about to post may be offensive to others, giving them the option to reflect before posting. YouTube will also test a new filter in YouTube Studio for potentially

WhatsApp could be testing the ability to make video and voice calls via its desktop app, as per a tweet by The Guardian’s Alex Hern. This facility is currently not available through WhatsApp Web or through the desktop app either, but it could arrive soon to all users. Hern shared an image on Twitter that

China’s WeChat social media platform blocked a message by Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison amid a dispute between Canberra and Beijing over the doctored tweeted image of an Australian soldier. China rebuffed Morrison’s calls for an apology after its foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian posted the picture of an Australian soldier holding a bloodied knife

WhatsApp users may lose access if they don’t accept new terms of service. The popular messaging service will reportedly update its terms of service in the coming year, that will take effect starting February 8. If users do not agree to the new privacy rules, however, they could lose access to the messaging app. WABetaInfo

A federal appeals court said on Wednesday it will hear oral arguments on December 14 on the government’s appeal of an order that blocked a ban on Apple and Alphabet’s Google offering TikTok for download in US app stores. US District Judge Carl Nichols in Washington on September 27 blocked the Commerce Department order hours before it was

Facebook’s “supreme court” tasked with deciding on allowing or removing sensitive and harmful content has begun operations, with a backlog of some 20,000 cases already piling up for the expert panel. The independent panel, formally known as the Facebook Oversight Board, is considering cases involving Nazi propaganda, hate speech, nudity, pandemic misinformation, and dangerous individuals

Facebook said Tuesday it will launch its news tab feature in Britain from next year, paying publishers for stories delivered through the world’s leading social network. The arrival of Facebook News in January comes after the service was rolled out in the United States in late 2019 and is part of plans to extend it

Reddit has reportedly shared that it averaged 52 million daily active users in October 2020. This marked a 44 percent increase compared to October last year. The social media platform has shared this data for the first time and in a bid to rope in more advertisers, along with being in line with industry reporting.

Zoom’s videoconferencing service remains a fixture in pandemic life, but its breakneck growth is showing signs of tapering off as investors debate whether the company will be able to build upon its recent success after a vaccine enables people to intermingle again. For now, Zoom is thriving as tens of millions of people who never

Instagram Live Rooms feature has been launched in India. Aimed at content creators in the country, the feature will facilitate greater audience engagement by allowing creators to go live with up to three additional people, the company explained in a press release. According to the company, the early tests for this feature were done in