TheNewsGuru

Tag: Facebook

  • Facebook to train female entrepreneurs in 10 universities

    Facebook to train female entrepreneurs in 10 universities

    Facebook’s Policy Programmes Head in Africa, Sherry Dzinoreva, says the company will intensify its female entrepreneurship training in 10 universities in Nigeria in 2019.

    Speaking during the ”SheMeansBusiness” dinner in Lagos, Dzinoreva said that Facebook was collaborating with ”She Leads Africa” to intensify female entrepreneurship training in Nigeria.

    She said that training would be intensified through its ”SheMeansBusiness” programme that was launched in Nigeria in 2018.

    According to her, the company trained over 4,000 female entrepreneurs in the country in 2018, through the SheMeansBusiness programme.

    ”We are going to continue to train thousands of women as well this year. Not very different from what we did last year, the only difference this year is that we are going into university as well.

    ”So we are going to be crossing 10 different universities across the country, as well as continuing to train female entrepreneurs.

    ”The ideas of the programme is for women to come together to learn how to use digital platforms to grow their businesses, but in doing so, we also have a number of other types of engagements.

    ”And as they do this, there are opportunities to network and learn how to actually grow their businesses.

    ”This year, we are bringing financial literacy into the programme as well. it is opportunity to empower and support female business owners and aspiring female business owners,” she said.

    Dzinoreva said that there was no specific criteria to engage on the programme, but just the entrepreneurial spirit of women who were either aspiring or existing entrepreneurs.

    She said that Facebook felt that there was definitely a need to do something a bit different for the women.

    ”There is something about creating spaces for women because we know that when women are doing well, their communities are doing well.

    ”When women are doing well; their families are doing well, businesses, industries are doing well and ultimately, the economy is driving as well.

    ”So we wanted to create a programme that was exclusively for women who were either one of you or are women who are thinking about opening a business and just need a little bit of inspiration,” Dzinoreva said.

    The Director, Public Policy Africa at Facebook, Ebele Okobi, said that there was the need for women to be in charge of their destinies, as it would affect the nation.

    Okobi said that Facebook was interested in ensuring that women used its platforms – Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp – to create economic independence.

    The Co-Founder, She Leads Africa, Afua Osei, said that this was the company’s third year of working with Facebook on a programme to teach, train and support women entrepreneurs.

    ”And last year, we had the opportunity to work on a programme that was just focused on women, understanding the unique challenges, as well as opportunities for women entrepreneurs.

    ”We changed more than 4,000 women all across Nigeria. So we are so excited that our training continued to have a serious impact in helping women all across Nigeria.

    ”This year we are going to drive around in Nigeria, and we are going to get 10 universities all across the country.

    ”We know that young people are entrepreneurial, they are excited, but they don’t really have that much money. So we are going to teach them how to start getting into businesses with a little cash,

    ”We are going to bring the training and the expertise to them, so that they can have that experience on their campuses,” Osei said.

  • New Zealand welcomes Facebook ban on white nationalism

    New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has welcomed Facebook’s decision to ban white nationalism and white separatism from the social media platform.

    “Arguably, these categories should always have fallen within their community guidelines of hate speech.

    “Nevertheless it’s positive the clarifications have now been made in the wake of the attack here in Christchurch,’’ she said at a news conference on Thursday in Christchurch.

    Fifty people died when a suspected white supremacist opened fire on worshippers in two mosques in the city on March 15.

    He broadcast a live video of the massacre on Facebook.

    The social media giant announced on Wednesday that it would widen its definition of prohibited hateful content on Facebook and Instagram.

    Ardern said countries including Australia, Ireland and Germany have taken steps to fine social media companies if they do not restrain the spread of extremist material.

    New Zealand, too, would look into what could be done.

    New Zealand is commemorating the victims and all those affected by the Christchurch attack with a national remembrance service on Friday.

    “The memorial service will reflect that it was the Muslim community that was hit by the attack,’’ Ardern said.

    Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the leader of the opposition Bill Shorten will attend the service, as well as many heads of state from the Pacific community.

    In total, diplomatic delegates from 59 countries are to attend the service.

    Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, is among a line-up of artists who will perform at the memorial, which will be held at Christchurch’s Hagley Park near the al-Noor mosque, where most of the victims were killed.

    The service will be live-streamed and shown at several events around the country.

    However, some planned events were cancelled amid concerns that stretched police resources could not guarantee the safety of the crowds.

    “While police has no information to suggest any specific risks to public safety, the national threat level remains high and police’s vigilance and visible presence throughout New Zealand will continue.

    “Decisions on whether or not events would be held were left to the event organisers,’’ police said.

    Earlier on, Ardern announced that Prince William would be travelling to Christchurch in late April.

    “I’m really pleased that he can make a short visit to support those affected by the attack and pay tribute to the extraordinary compassion and solidarity that New Zealanders have displayed in recent weeks,’’ she said.

  • Facebook bans white nationalism after New Zealand shooting

    Facebook bans white nationalism after New Zealand shooting

    Facebook has announced a ban on praise, support and representation of white nationalism and white separatism on Facebook and Instagram.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports the social media giants on Wednesday said the ban will start enforcing next week.

    This is coming after a gunman killed 50 people and left dozens injured in mass shootings at two mosques in the city of Christchurch in New Zealand.

    The mass shootings at the two New Zealand mosques was streamed live on Facebook, with a manifesto allegedly written by the suspect revealing white nationalist views.

    “It’s clear that these concepts are deeply linked to organized hate groups and have no place on our services.

    “Our policies have long prohibited hateful treatment of people based on characteristics such as race, ethnicity or religion — and that has always included white supremacy,” the social media giant said in a blog post.

    It further stated, “We didn’t originally apply the same rationale to expressions of white nationalism and white separatism because we were thinking about broader concepts of nationalism and separatism — things like American pride and Basque separatism, which are an important part of people’s identity”.

    According to Facebook, searches for terms associated with white supremacy will surface a link to Life After Hate’s Page, where people can find support in the form of education, interventions, academic research and outreach.

    “Going forward, while people will still be able to demonstrate pride in their ethnic heritage, we will not tolerate praise or support for white nationalism and white separatism,” Facebook said.

  • Two chiefs quit as Facebook reorganizes

    Chris Cox, Facebook Chief Product Officer and Chris Daniels, Vice President for WhatsApp have both left the company.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg made this known as the company reorganizes to become privacy-focused.

    Zuckerberg said his social media platform is reorganizing to become more centered around making private messaging, stories and groups the foundation of the experience, including enabling encryption and interoperability across services.

    Expressed sadness Cox and Daniels left at this time, while also deeply grateful for their contribution to the firm.

    “While it is sad to lose such great people, this also creates opportunities for more great leaders who are energized about the path ahead to take on new and bigger roles,” Zuckerberg said.

    Will Cathcart will be taking over as the new head of WhatsApp and Zuckerberg has left Cox’s role vacant.

    “Instead, the leaders of Facebook (Fidji Simo), Instagram (Adam Mosseri), Messenger (Stan Chudnovsky), and WhatsApp (Will Cathcart) will report directly to me, and our Chief Marketing Officer (Antonio Lucio) will report directly to Sheryl,” the Facebook CEO stated.

  • Facebook gets proactive against revenge porn

    Facebook gets proactive against revenge porn

    Facebook has announced new detection technology and an online resource hub to proactively fight against revenge porn on the platform.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports revenge porn, also known as non-consensual intimate images, is sharing someone’s intimate images without their permission.

    “Finding these images goes beyond detecting nudity on our platforms.

    “By using machine learning and artificial intelligence, we can now proactively detect near nude images or videos that are shared without permission on Facebook and Instagram,” Antigone Davis, Facebook’s Global Head of Safety said in a blog post.

    This means that Facebook can now find revenge porn contents before anyone reports them.

    Davis, however, said a specially-trained team member will review the contents found by the technology, before they are removed.

    “If the image or video violates our Community Standards, we will remove it, and in most cases we will also disable an account for sharing intimate content without permission,” he said.

    Meanwhile, there is an appeals process if someone believes Facebook made a mistake for removing a particular content.

  • Facebook bans foreign-funded campaign ads for Indonesian election

    Facebook has temporarily banned political ads purchased from outside Indonesia in an effort to combat foreign interference in the country’s upcoming election.

    The restriction, which took effect on Tuesday, targets any ad that references politicians or political parties or attempts to encourage or suppress voting, Facebook said in a statement.

    “Combating foreign interference is a key pillar of our approach to safeguarding election integrity on our platform,’’ the social network said.

    Incumbent President, Joko Widodo, faces former Gen. Prabowo Subianto in the April 17 election – a repeat of the 2014 vote, which was marked by divisive and religiously-charged campaigning.

    In February, the Russian embassy in Jakarta denied the country was interfering in the Indonesian election after Joko accused Prabowo’s camp of engaging in “Russian propaganda’’.

    The opposition says that after five years in office, the president has a dismal economic record and is too cosy with China.

    Facebook said it was using a mix of automated and human review to help it identify offending ads.

    The company said it was setting up an operations centre in Singapore that focused on fighting false news, hates speech and election interference.

    In January, the company removed more than 1,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts, accusing them of engaging in what it called coordinated inauthentic behaviour in Indonesia.

     

  • Facebook cracks down on sale of fake accounts, likes, followers

    Facebook cracks down on sale of fake accounts, likes, followers

    Facebook and Instagram have filed a lawsuit in US federal court against four companies and three people based in the People’s Republic of China for promoting the sale of fake accounts, likes and followers.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports Paul Grewal, Facebook’s Vice President and Deputy General Counsel, Litigation, made this known on Friday.

    “They did this on both Facebook and Instagram as well as other online service providers including Amazon, Apple, Google, LinkedIn and Twitter.

    “We’re also enforcing our rights under US intellectual property law for their illegal use of our trademarks and brand.

    “By filing the lawsuit, we hope to reinforce that this kind of fraudulent activity is not tolerated – and that we’ll act forcefully to protect the integrity of our platform,” said the Facebook VP.

    The lawsuit specifically asked the court to prevent these people and entities from “creating and promoting the sale of fake accounts, likes, and followers on Facebook and Instagram”; “infringing on our trademarks on their websites” and “using Facebook branded domain names to operate their websites (i.e. cyber squatting)”.

    “Inauthentic activity has no place on our platform. That’s why we devote significant resources to detecting and stopping this behavior, including disabling millions of fake accounts every day.

    “Today’s lawsuit is one more step in our ongoing efforts to protect people on Facebook and Instagram,” said Grewal.

     

  • EU urges Facebook, Google, Twitter to fight disinformation as European elections approach

    As the electoral campaigns ahead of the crucial European Parliamentary elections will start in March, the EU need to see more progress on the commitments made by Facebook, Google and Twitter to fight disinformation, it said.

    The online platforms, signatories of EU’s Code of Practice against disinformation, failed to provide enough details showing that new policies and tools are being deployed timely and with sufficient resources inside the Union, read the statement.

    To defend the integrity of the European Parliament elections in May, the pan-Europe body demands these three online platforms to report monthly on their actions.

    But the latest submitted reports “provide too little information on the actual results of the measures already taken,” said the statement.

    “We urge Facebook, Google and Twitter to do more across all Member States to help ensure the integrity of the European Parliament elections in May 2019.

    “We also encourage platforms to strengthen their cooperation with fact-checkers and academic researchers to detect disinformation campaigns and make fact-checked content more visible and widespread,” said the statement.

    The monitoring of the Code of Practice is part of the Action Plan against disinformation that the EU adopted in December 2018 to build up capabilities and strengthen cooperation between member states.

    And also the code was part of plan against EU institutions to proactively address the threats posed by disinformation.

    The European Parliament elections are expected to be held between May 23 and May 26, 2019.

    Amid growing populism inside Europe, the elections are expected to change the EU’s political dynamics.

     

  • Facebook, CcHUB to connect start-ups with big businesses

    Facebook and Co-Creation Hub (CcHUB) say they are partnering to connect start-ups to medium and large corporates.

    The companies made this known during the Press Day of Innovation Showcase Week (ISW) 2019 on Wednesday in Lagos.

    Speaking during the programme, Chief Executive Officer of CcHUB, Bosun Tijani, said that the firms had organised Innovation Showcase Week (ISW) 2019 for the start-ups.

    Tijani said that ISW, which opened between February 27 to March 1, 2019, would unveil the latest transformative technologies that would redefine industries.

    He said that the transformative technologies would solve some of the most pressing business and consumer challenges in Nigeria.

    According to him, a first of its kind event with over 20 exhibiting technology startups, will showcase the latest technology innovations to some 400 business and industry representatives across two days.

    ”Innovation Showcase Week, tagged ”ISW 2019” is the first technology product showcase exhibition out of the startup support programmes by technology innovation centre – Co-Creation Hub (CcHUB) and global enterprise, Facebook.

    ”We recognise the urgent need to accelerate innovation support to medium and large corporates who are positioned to secure significant gains for the economy through smart application of technology.

    ”ISW will close the gap between corporates and startups by being an unprecedented platform where industry leaders can experience and adopt homegrown innovations and solutions first hand.

    ”Showcasing startups at ISW would unveil their ground-breaking innovations built in Facebook’s deep-technology startup programme – FBStart Accelerator and the CcHUB 2018 Incubation programme,” he said.

    Tijani said that the products on display leveraged advanced technologies such as Data Science, Internet of Things, Visual Reality (VR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

    He said that the products were across eight categories of Healthcare, Agriculture, Mobility, Energy, Education, Safety, Training and Security.

    According to him, these solutions proffer break-through advances to business and consumer challenges in Nigeria.

    On the ISW 2019 showfloor, exhibiting AI and Security-focused startups are Chiniki Guard, SayPeace, Identity Tech, E-Estates, DeepQuest AI and Insyt demonstrate AI’s promising power.

    Other products on display for the Health and Agriculture sectors include Vetsark, Doctoora, Plantheus, TrepLabs, Gricd and Truppr.

    Energy and Mobility dedicated areas have Upnepa, Smart Electricity, Hydrolite, Cycles and Lara products on display.

    The Virtual reality and Safety Training section showcases immersive solutions from Quadron VR, Kanji Drive and Project Move.

    Ms Kendra Nnachi, Facebook Startup and Developer Programmes Manager, said that ISW embodied the innovative spirit that defined the Nigerian startup ecosystem.

    Nnachi said that the world was in the age where innovation matter, hence, the need to support and promote innovations.

    She urged the start-ups to always develop innovation that stand the taste of time and sustain their livelihoods.

    ”The products and services launching here by the Facebook and CcHUB supported startups will empower individuals and enterprises to change our world for the better,” Nnachi said.

     

  • Facebook, Instagram ban British far-right founder

    Facebook, Instagram ban British far-right founder

    Social media giant Facebook removed the accounts of British far-right founder Tommy Robinson, on Tuesday but his YouTube channel remained active.

    Facebook said Robinson’s pages had repeatedly broken its standards by “posting material that uses dehumanising language and calls for violence targeted at Muslims.

    “He has also behaved in ways that violate our policies around organised hate,” it said in a statement confirming it had removed Robinson’s official Facebook page and Instagram profile.

    Gerard Batten, leader of the Brexit-focused UK Independence Party, appointed Robinson, 36, as an unpaid adviser in November 2018.

    Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage said he was “appalled” by the appointment.

    Batten urged Facebook on Tuesday to reinstate Robinson’s accounts and those of other senior UKIP members that were also removed “without any explanation whatsoever.”

    “I am sure it is no coincidence that this is happening within 24 hours of the release of the ‘Panodrama’ documentary,” he said, referring to Robinson’s video accusing the BBC of bias over an investigation of him by the broadcaster’s Panorama programme.

    In a post on YouTube on Monday, Robinson urged supporters to join a mailing list “so I can contact you when I eventually get deleted.”

    The former leader of the English Defence League and co-founder of Pegida UK, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, has convictions for assault, public disorder and drugs offences.

    Robinson was sentenced to 13 months in prison in May after broadcasting details of a trial in progress.
    But he was freed on bail in August pending a decision on a possible retrial.