TheNewsGuru

Tag: Facebook

  • Facebook announces Messenger ads expansion for businesses

    Facebook announces Messenger ads expansion for businesses

    Facebook has announced Messenger ads will begin popping up on home screens of users globally, while also urging businesses take advantage of it.

    The social network giant revealed this in an online post on Tuesday saying, “Today we’re pleased to announce the global beta expansion of Messenger ads. People already spend time on Messenger interacting and conducting commerce with businesses and brands they love, and now with Messenger ads, they have an opportunity to discover experiences directly on their home tab”.

    Facebook enticed businesses to take advantage of a new tool for creating ads for Messenger, which it said is used by more than 1.2 billion people monthly.

    “Messenger is dedicated to building new and creative ways to help businesses and developers connect with the more than 1.2 billion people around the world who use the platform every month,” the post further stated.

    Facebook announces Messenger ads expansion for businesses

    Facebook says “for developers, having a variety of ways to surface the conversational, visual and social experiences they’ve built for businesses and people is crucial,” and that “Messenger ads offer developers and businesses a way to use Facebook targeting to extend their reach to people around the world”.

    The Facebook suite of ad products in Messenger now include:

    • Messenger ads – found in the home tab of Messenger. When people tap on an ad, they will be sent to the destination chosen during ads creation. This can be your website or a Messenger conversation.
    • Click to Messenger ads – takes full advantage of the personalized nature of messaging by driving people to a conversation after they interact with the ad in Facebook, Instagram or Messenger.
    • Sponsored messages – allows businesses to re-engage with people who have started a conversation with them.

    “Starting today, some advertisers will begin to see Messenger ads as part of automatic placements within Power Editor and Ads Manager.

    “Advertisers will be able to add Messenger to campaigns using the Traffic and Conversion objectives and leverage existing targeting options,” Facebook stated.

    The social media firm said a small percentage of people will begin to see ads in their Messenger Home tab towards the end of this month.

    If you’re working with a brand or business, Facebook says, if you are interested in learning more, further information and creative options can be found here.

     

  • Twitter rolls out advance features to curb abusive behaviours

    Twitter, in its latest step to curb abusive behaviours on its platform, rolled out new features on Monday to help users disable notifications from accounts that they want to avoid.

    The micro-blogging website said its “advanced filter settings” will now have options for users to mute notifications from accounts that they do not follow as well as from accounts that do not follow them.

    Users can also filter lower-quality content from notifications such as content that appears to be automated and mute notifications related to certain words and phrases.

    Twitter had said in March that it would introduce new filtering options for notifications to allow users to limit what they see from certain types of accounts, such as those that do not have a profile photo.

    Twitter and rival Facebook have been facing a barrage of criticism for failing to tackle cyber-bullying, fake news and extremist propaganda on their platforms.

    To set quality filter on the web:
    1. Go to your Notifications timeline.
    2. To filter your notifications, click on Settings.
    3. Click the box next to quality filter to turn on or off.
    4. Click the Save changes button.
    To set quality filter using Twitter for iOS:
    1. Go to your Notifications timeline
    2. Tap the gear icon
    3. Drag the slider next to quality filter to turn on or off.
    To set quality filter using Twitter for Android:
    1. Go to your Notifications timeline
    2. Tap the gear icon
    3. Check the box next to quality filter to turn on or off.
    To set filters on the web:
    1. Go to your Notifications timeline.
    2. To filter your notifications, click on Settings.
    3. Check the box of your preferred filter(s) to turn on.
    To set filters using Twitter for iOS:
    1. Go to your Notifications timeline
    2. Tap on the gear icon
    3. Tap Advanced filters.
    4. Drag the slider next to your preferred filter(s) to turn on.
    To set filters using Twitter for Android:
    1. Go to your Notifications timeline
    2. Tap on the gear icon
    3. Tap Advanced filters.
    4. Check the box of your preferred filter(s) to turn on.

     

     

  • Did you receive the Jayden K. Smith message?

    Did you receive the Jayden K. Smith message?

    I did as did some millions of Facebook users who received the warning message about a friend request from some Jayden K. Smith.

    Globally, Facebook and Twitter users have been sent into a frenzy being warned not to accept an unsolicited friend request from one mysterious Jayden K. Smith, who is not Will Smith’s son because that would be Jaden Smith.

    “Please tell all the contacts in your messenger list not to accept Jayden K. Smith friendship request.

    Did you receive the Jayden K. Smith message?
    This Jaden Smith does not want to be your Facebook friend, most probably. Source: Instagram

    “He is a hacker and has the system connected to your Facebook account. If one of your contacts accepts it, you will also be hacked, so make sure that all your friends know it. Thanks. Forwarded as received.

    “Hold your finger down on the message. At the bottom in the middle it will say forward. Hit that then click on the names of those in your list and it will send to them,” was the version of the message I received from more than 15 contacts I know on my friends’list.

    This drove my curiosity to want to find out what this is all about and it took me to myth-busting website, Snopes that this has been a “long running hoax”.

    “Accepting a Facebook friend request from a stranger will not provide hackers with access to your computer and online accounts.

    “Variants of these messages are circulated endlessly, with different names swapped in and out.

    “The most common variant of this hoax is one that warns the reader not to accept Facebook friend requests from ‘hackers’ purportedly named ‘Christopher Davies’ and ‘Jessica Davies,’ otherwise one of the two will wreak some unspecified havoc,” Snopes said in a post busting the Jayden K. Smith myth.

    As to whether it’s dangerous, it’s generally thought not. Simply accepting a friend request is a relatively inefficient way of delivering a virus or other IT nasty. Fooling people into opening a rogue email attachment works far better.

    But there’s no guarantees, states Snopes.

    “It’s not outside the realm of possibility that an e-mail message or a link posted on Facebook might carry a virus payload which could infect your computer and allow it be controlled by a botnet, but virus warnings that correspond to the patterns detailed above can be safely dismissed as japes,” Snopes further stated.

     

  • Which are you? Study shows four types of Facebook users

    Which are you? Study shows four types of Facebook users

    A new study has shown there are four types of Facebook users on the social media platform, revealed in what users display the most, and why they do so.

    The researchers from Brigham Young University say 1.28 billion people check in on Facebook each day, and that they each spend about 35 minutes browsing their feeds.

    “Social media is so ingrained in everything we do right now,” study co-author Kris Boyle says, adding: “And most people don’t think about why they do it, but if people can recognize their habits, that at least, create awareness”.

    The study, published in the International Journal of Virtual Communities and Social Networking, found people generally fell into four categories.

    • Relationship builders respond to other people’s posts and use Facebook to strengthen real-world relationships. “They use it as an extension of their real life, with their family and real-life friends,” study lead author Tom Robinson says.
    • Town criers, however, make a distinction between their real and virtual worlds. They don’t share photos or stories about themselves. Instead, they “want to inform everybody about what’s going on” by reposting news stories and announcing events.
    • Selfies self-promote. They are heavy posters of pictures, videos and updates. But their motive is to get attention, unlike relationship builders. Study co-author Kris Boyle says selfies use Facebook “to present an image of themselves, whether it’s accurate or not.”
    • Window shoppers are there, but they generally don’t want to be seen. They feel a sense of obligation to see what their friends and associates are saying, but rarely contribute themselves. “It’s the social-media equivalent of people watching,” study co-author Clark Callahan says.

    “What is it about this social-media platform that has taken over the world?” study lead author, Tom Robinson asks.

    “Why are people so willing to put their lives on display? Nobody has ever really asked the question, ‘Why do you like this?’” he further queried.

    The study, he says, goes some way to answering these questions by identifying our human motivations.

    While similar categories to ‘relationship-builder’ and ‘selfie’ users have been found by other studies, the researchers say the emergence of ‘town criers’ and ‘window shoppers’ was an unexpected find.

    “Nobody had really talked about these users before, but when we thought about it, they both made a lot of sense,” Robinson says.

    But the definitions are not always clear-cut.

    Many users may identify with more than one category.

    Most people have some degree of ‘selfie’ behaviour. But almost all fall more into one category than all the others.

    Are you a Relationship builder, a town crier, a selfie or a window shopper Facebook user? Leave a comment below!

     

  • Death sentence: Facebook meets with Pakistani govt

    Death sentence: Facebook meets with Pakistani govt

    A senior Facebook official met with Pakistani interior minister on Friday to discuss a demand the company prevent blasphemous content or be blocked.

    The meeting comes after a Pakistani counter-terrorism court sentenced a 30-year-old man to death for making blasphemous comments on Facebook, part of a wider crack-down.

    Joel Kaplan, Facebook’s vice president of public policy, met Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan, who offered to approve a Facebook office in Pakistan, which has 33 million users of the network.

    Khan said Pakistan believes in freedom of expression, but that does not include insulting Islam or stoking religious tensions.

    “We cannot allow anyone to misuse social media for hurting religious sentiments,” Khan said.

    Facebook called the meeting “constructive”.

    “Facebook met with Pakistan officials to express the company’s deep commitment to protecting the rights of the people who use its service, and to enabling people to express themselves freely and safely,” the company said in an email.

    “It was an important and constructive meeting in which we raised our concerns over the recent court cases and made it clear we apply a strict legal process to any government request for data or content restrictions.”

    Pakistan’s social media crack-down is officially aimed at weeding out blasphemy and shutting down accounts promoting terrorism, but civil rights activists say it has also swept up writers and bloggers who criticise the government or military.

    One of five prominent writers and activists who disappeared for nearly three weeks this year later told a UN human rights event in March that Pakistan’s intelligence agencies had kidnapped him and tortured him in custody.

    Others’ families said right-wing and Islamist parties had filed blasphemy accusations against them to punish them for critical writings.

    Anything deemed insulting to Islam or the Prophet Muhammad carries a death penalty in Pakistan, and sometimes a mere allegation can lead to mob violence and lynchings. Right groups say the law is frequently abused to settle personal scores.

    In April, a Pakistani university student, Mashal Khan, was beaten to death by a mob after being accused of blasphemous content on Facebook. Police arrested 57 people accused in the attack and said they had found no evidence Khan committed blasphemy.

     

  • How to remove explicit contents of yourself from the Internet

    How to remove explicit contents of yourself from the Internet

    Finding explicit contents of yourself – that you shared with someone you trusted – online can be incredibly, deeply distressing. You might feel the ground should just open up for you to enter.

    But if you think your private, sexual videos or pictures have been posted on the internet without your consent, there are steps you can take to right it.

    Here’s what you should do if you’re a victim of revenge porn.

    Call the police

    Sharing explicit contents of someone without their consent is a crime, and perpetrators can serve a prison term for it.

    You may feel embarrassed or ashamed, but this is something you absolutely must go to the police about.

    Reporting the crime to the authorities is the first step – it will not only bring the perpetrator to justice, but it will help stop them from doing the same thing to another victim, and in the event the issue should take a different dimension.

    Get it taken down from the website

    After reporting to the police, the next thing to do is get the content off the website of.

    If the photos are selfies, or a video that you took yourself, then you own the copyright. Contact the website and say they were uploaded without your consent.

    You should also mention that you’ve reported the images or footage to the police.

    Get it removed from Google

    Removing the content from the website of origin is not enough. Google has recently made it easier for victims to stop revenge porn from appearing in search results.

    To request that your content is removed from Google, you can fill out this form.

    You just need to provide them with the following information:

    • Your full name
    • Country
    • Contact email address
    • URL for where the content is live, if applicable
    • A sample URL of Google search results where the image or video appears
    • Screenshots of the offending content, which will help ensure that Google is removing the correct results. Use image-editing software to obscure the sexually explicit portions of the screenshots, but ensure that it will help identify the specific content you wish to be removed.

    Get it off Facebook

    If the images or video has been shared on Facebook, you can anonymously report the posts to the site.

    You can also report the individual user to the social network, as long as you provide the URL to their profile and their email address. Do so using this link.

    Talk to someone

    Even though you’re not in the wrong, being the victim of malicious leaks or revenge porn can make you feel ashamed, isolated and depressed. It is an incredibly traumatic thing for anyone to have to go through.

    Given the nature of the crime, you may not feel comfortable bringing it up with friends, family, colleagues or teachers.

    If so, remember that you’re not alone – there are people you can talk to, especially people who are honest with you about the occurrence.

     

  • Telcos pressure NCC revisits suspended Data Floor Price

    Telcos pressure NCC revisits suspended Data Floor Price

    Telecommunications operators have urged Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) to as a matter of urgency revisit the suspended data floor price in order to save them from distress.

    Data Floor Plan Price is a partial price control measure, which is the lower limit price to check unhealthy but foster healthy competition among players.

    The price floor is a means of controlling anti-competitive behaviours by operators considered to have attained the dominant status in the industry.

    Engr. Gbenga Adebayo, chairman Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) stated this at breakfast meeting organized by the Nigeria Information Technology Reporters’ Association (NITRA), in Lagos, at the weekend

    He explained that floor price is a partial price control measure, which is the lower limit price to check unhealthy but foster healthy competition among players.

    “The price floor is a means of controlling anti-competitive behaviours by operators considered to have attained the dominant status in the industry. Earlier, there was a limit to how low ISPs could charge for data services, the regulator in October 2015, approved the removal of data floor price, giving internet service providers opportunity to drop their data prices as low as they can in order to survive.”

    He added: “before then, NCC had set the data floor price limit as a way of ensuring smaller ISPs and ‘upcoming’ telcos had the chance to compete with the bigger, already established ones. The ISPs could compete for customers with low prices. This has now come to hurt the industry very badly, as the smaller operators are finding difficult in a recessed economy to survive due to the ‘heavy weight of the bigger players who are able to cross-subsidize the array of services they offer.”

    According to him, ‘statistics available has shown that bigger players lost some market share when the floor price was set and smaller operators got some space in the market place.

    The Internet service providers have been badly hurt by none determination of a floor price as they are left to compete at prices below their costs.’

    He noted that demand for data have increased in recent times following a rapid growth of mobile phone subscribers in the country as there has been an influx of smartphones and other data consuming gadgets into the Nigerian market in recent years.

    “The social media Over the Top (OTT) like the Facebook, Whatapp, Instagram, etc have taken over the voice revenues. The activities of the social media operators have greatly eroded the revenue of the legacy operators. The industry is going through a lot of challenges; it is now inevitable for the NCC to review the Data Floor Price that was suspended. This is necessary to save the industry. Mobile data revenue is growing while the growth of mobile voice revenue is declining.”

    “More subscribers are dropping the voice call to embrace the OTT operations which are offered free of charge on data services. Since the OTT operators do not have any regulatory obligations, no taxes and no operational levy, there is the need to revisit the suspended Data Floor Price in order to save the telecom industry.”

    Adebayo also decried the challenge operators are facing in purchasing foreign exchange to fulfil their contractual obligations to equipment suppliers and foreign vendors.

    “This situation is adversely impacting our network operations and also some recent developments in the industry have alluded very clearly to the risks at hand. The prevailing scarcity of FX has occasioned a situation where the Banks are unable to obtain FX for an upward period of six months.”

     

  • Facebook downs low quality links, to display only informative links

    Facebook downs low quality links, to display only informative links

    A Vice President at Facebook has revealed the social network is making an update to help reduce low quality links in News Feed, saying that “We are always working to improve people’s experience in News Feed by showing more stories that we think people will find informative and entertaining.

    Facebook VP News Feed, Adam Mosseri, revealed this yesterday in a blog post saying research carried out on the platform shows that there is a tiny group of people who routinely share vast amounts of public posts every day, effectively spamming people’s feeds.

    “Our research further shows that the links they share tend to include low quality content such as clickbait, sensationalism, and misinformation.

    “As a result, we want to reduce the influence of these spammers and deprioritize the links they share more frequently than regular sharers.

    “Of course, this is only one signal among many others that may affect the ranking prioritization of this type of post,” said Mosseri.

    The Facebook boss says this update will only apply to links, such as an individual article, not to domains, Pages, videos, photos, check-ins or status updates.

    “One of our core News Feed values is that News Feed should be informative.

    “By taking steps like this to improve News Feed, we’re able to surface more stories that people find informative and reduce the spread of problematic links such as clickbait, sensationalism and misinformation,” the VP further stated.

    “Most publishers won’t see any significant changes to their distribution in News Feed,” the VP said, adding: “Publishers that get meaningful distribution from people who routinely share vast amounts of public posts per day may see a reduction in the distribution of those specific links”.

    Mosseri, however, said, publishers that keep clean would continue see their posts reach their audiences.

     

  • Facebook completes Internet-beaming drone second test without crash

    Facebook said on Thursday it had completed a second test of its Aquila drone designed to someday beam internet access to remote parts of the planet, and unlike in the first test, the drone did not crash.

    Facebook plans to develop a fleet of drones powered by sunlight that will fly for months at a time, communicating with each other through lasers and extending internet connectivity to the ground below.

    https://www.facebook.com/Engineering/videos/10155377054702200/

    The company called the first test, in June 2016, a success after it flew above the Arizona desert for 1 hour and 36 minutes, three times longer than planned. It later said the drone had also crashed moments before landing and had suffered a damaged wing.

    The second test occurred on May 22, Martin Luis Gomez, Facebook’s director of aeronautical platforms, said in a blog post.

    The aircraft flew for an hour and 46 minutes before landing near Yuma, Arizona, with only “a few minor, easily-repairable dings,” he said.

    Facebook engineers had added “spoilers” to the aircraft’s wings to increase drag and reduce lift during the landing approach, Gomez said.

     

  • NCC releases guide to guard against Petya ransomware

    After Petya ransomware paralyzed connected systems worldwide, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has released a guide to ward off the menace in Nigeria.

    Although the country is yet to report any case of the Petya ransomware attack, the NCC is saying individuals and organisations should take necessary precautions because the spread of Petya indicates many may still be vulnerable.

    The telecoms regulator says the new ransomware that it likened to WannaCry is spreading around the globe speedily, and stressed Petya “…has a better mechanism for spreading itself than WannaCry”.

    “The malicious software spreads rapidly across an organization once a computer is infected using the Eternal Blue vulnerability in Microsoft Windows. Like WannaCry, Petya ransomware takes over the computers and demands $300 paid in Bitcoin,” said NCC.

    NCC stated three mechanisms by which Petya spreads to additional hosts to include:

    • Petya scans the local system 24/7 to discover enumerate ADMINS shares on other systems, then copies itself to those hosts and executes the malware using PSEXEC. This is only possible if the infected user has the rights to write files and execute them on system hosting the share.
    • Petya uses the Windows Management Instrumentation Command-line (WMIC) tool to connect to hosts on the local subnet and attempts to execute itself remotely on those hosts. It can use Mimikatz to extract credentials from the infected system and use them to execute itself on the targeted host.
    • Petya finally attempts to use the ETERNALBLUE exploit tool against hosts on the local subnet. This will only be successful if the targeted host does not have the MS17-010 patches deployed.

    “The general public is advised not to panic as demonstrated during the WannaCry attacks in May, 2017. Windows systems should be patched for this vulnerability by competent personnel,” NCC stated.

    The Commission advised both individuals and organizations to note and observe the following to guide against the ransomware:

    • Do not click on any suspicious or unknown links.
    • Protect yourself when using public Wi-Fi.
    • Do not visit unsafe and unreliable sites.
    • Avoid clicking on links that leads to websites such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp etc. Instead it is much safer to visit the site directly through their URL.
    • If you receive a message or email with an attachment, try to verify authenticity of the sender before opening.
    • Do not open attachments from suspicious senders.
    • Store all your documents in ‘my document folder’.
    • Keep your files backed up regularly.