TheNewsGuru

Tag: Google

  • UK foreign minister attacks Google over child abuse content

    UK foreign minister attacks Google over child abuse content

    British Foreign Minister, Jeremy Hunt, accused Google on Thursday of abandoning its moral values by failing to remove child abuse content while launching a version of its search engine in China that will block some websites.

    The government has repeatedly criticised online platforms such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook for failing to remove abusive material or sexual content posted online even after they were notified.

    “Seems extraordinary that Google is considering censoring its content to get into China but won’t cooperate with UK, U.S. … in removing child abuse content,” Hunt said on Twitter.

    “They used to be so proud of being values-driven.”

    Alphabet’s Google plans a search engine in China that will block some search terms and websites, two sources told Reuters earlier this month, in a move that could mark its return to a market it abandoned eight years ago on censorship concerns.

    Google declined to comment on Hunt’s remarks.

    Britain, the U.S., Australia, Canada and New Zealand invited major technology companies to attend a meeting on tackling child abuse and extremism on their websites, but the firms declined to attend, the Daily Mail reported on Thursday.

    Google did offer to send an executive to the conference but the offer was not taken up, a source at the company said.

    In January, Prime Minister Theresa May used an address at the World Economic Forum in Davos to say investors should use their financial power to force internet firms into taking more responsibility for stopping militants and pedophiles using their platforms.

    Google, which quit China’s search engine market in 2010, has been actively seeking ways to re-enter China where many of its products are blocked by regulators.

    Leading human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have urged Google not to bow to censorship demands in China because by doing so, they allege, the company would be complicit in the repression of freedom of speech.

    Search terms about human rights, democracy, religion and peaceful protests will be among the words blacklisted in the search engine app, which The Intercept website said had already been demonstrated to the Chinese government.

    The project is code-named “Dragonfly” and has been under way since the spring of 2017, the news website said.

     

  • UN tasks social media giants to clamp down on hate speech

    UN tasks social media giants to clamp down on hate speech

    United Nations (UN) human rights chief on Wednesday said social media giants, including Facebook, must proactively block content inciting hatred.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the social media must also prevent online campaigns which target minorities, such as those undertaken in Myanmar.

    Zeid, who said Facebook had allowed its platform to be used to incite violence against Rohingya, was speaking after UN experts accused Myanmar generals of “genocidal intent”.

    He said he didn’t feel Facebook took the issue seriously at first but that the company’s attitude began to change after Yanghee Lee, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, told a Geneva press conference in March that Facebook was being used in the country to spread hate speech.

    “But it shouldn’t be because the press or the human rights community highlights the problem for them then suddenly to respond. They should be aware of it ahead of time,” Zeid said.

    “So I don’t think they should wait until the crisis begins. They should be thinking proactively about what steps they will take to mitigate that,” he added.

    However, Zeid said there was a danger that social media could be over-regulated in a way that breaches human rights law including the right to freedom of expression.

    Tech giants should “keep the broadest space available and open to the exercise of freedom of expression”, relying on international human rights law for regulation, he said.

     

  • Trump accuses Google of hiding ‘fair media’ coverage of him

    U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday accused Google’s search engine of hiding “fair media” coverage of him and said he would address the situation, without giving any details.

    In a pair of tweets, Trump said Google search results for “Trump News” showed only the reporting of what he terms fake news media.

    “They have it RIGGED, for me & others,” he said, blaming Google, part of Alphabet Inc, for what he said was dangerous action that promoted mainstream media outlets such as CNN and suppressed conservative politicalvoices.

    “This is a very serious situation-will be addressed!” Trump added, without offering any details.

    Representatives for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Google also could not be immediately reached.

    Trump has long criticized news media coverage of him, frequently using the term fake news to describe critical reports.

    He has made social media, particularly Twitter, an integral part of his presidency.

    He has previously accused social media companies, which include Twitter and Facebook, of censorship.

    Trump’s accusation of bias on the part of Google comes as social media companies have suspended accounts, banned certain users and removed content as they face pressure from the U.S. Congress to police foreign propaganda and fake accounts aimed at disrupting American politics, including operations tied to Iran and Russia.

    Companies such as Facebook and Twitter have also been pressed to remove conspiracy driven content and hate speech.

    Tech companies have said they do not remove content for political reasons.

    Some Republican U.S. lawmakers have also raised concerns about social media companies removing content from some conservatives, and have called Twitter’s chief executive to testify before a U.S. House of Representatives committee on Sept. 5.

    Earlier in the month, Alphabet’s YouTube joined Apple Inc and Facebook in removing some content from Infowars, a website run by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.

    Jones was also temporarily suspended on Twitter.

     

  • Entrepreneurship growth in Nigeria, Africa critical to continent’s survival – Google

    Google on Monday said the growth of entrepreneurship in Africa was critical to the survival of the continent.

    Mr Fola Olatunji-David, Head of Startup Success and Services, Launchpad Accelerator Africa, made the remark at the unveiling of 11- developers that made the second class.

    Launchpad Accelerator Africa, first announced in July, 2017, is a Google’s initiatives that support the African entrepreneurial ecosystem, and builds on the Launchpad programmes.

    Already run in Africa, it has successfully connected over 200 African mentors with several hundred African tech startup entrepreneurs, through one-week boot camps in six different African cities over the last two years.

    Olatunji-David said that the Launchpad Accelerator Africa class was part of the Google’s ongoing efforts to support entrepreneurship on the continent.

    “The accelerator, which is housed in Lagos, Nigeria, has already demonstrated its value as the first Launchpad Accelerator Africa class, saw 12 startups graduates, with more than 20 teams from Google and 40 mentors from nine countries supporting them.

    “The startups have directly created 132 jobs and between them, have raised over 7 million dollars in funding. Their products are being used by approximately 4.5 million people.

    “Google is currently creating about three million jobs per year, while more than 11 million job seekers are entering the market and believes that empowering entrepreneurs and startups are essential to drive employment growth.

    “It will also allow both economic and social development on the continent,” he said.

    Olatunji-David said that for the second class, Google extended applications to additional 11 countries and received more than 250 applications, including graduates of the previous Launchpad programmes, with others referred to the programme by Launchpad mentors.

    He listed the 11 finalists from six countries as: AppZone (Nigeria) that built a software service (SaaS) for fintech ecosystems for digital banks, allowing them to reduce operational costs while improving service delivery.

    “Others are Chalkboard Education (Ghana); Cloud9xp (Kenya); EzyAgric (Uganda); Formplus (Nigeria); Medsaf (Nigeria); Mintrics (Egypt); PayGo Energy (Kenya); Pineapple (South Africa); Preeva (South Africa); Thank U Cash (Nigeria) ” he said.

    Olatunji-David said that each of the finalists would receive three months intense mentoring and support from Google, Cloud and Firebase Credits, three weeks all-expense-paid training at Launchpad Accelerator Africa (Lagos and Johannesburg).

    He said they would also have access to Google engineers, resources and mentors during and after the programme inclusion in the Launchpad Accelerator Global Community and network of alumni and mentors.

    According to him, applicants needed to be an early stage technology startup based in Sub-Saharan Africa, targeting the African market that had already raised seed funding.

    Earlier, the Country Director, Mrs Juliet Ehimuan-Chiazor, said that Google had been committed for years to helping local businesses thrive online, saying that they were meaningful and crucial partners in our ecosystem.

    “Through our different initiatives, we have helped to get tens of thousands of small businesses online, and helped them to succeed.

    “We are incredibly proud of how Launchpad Accelerator Africa `Class 1’ contributed to that legacy and cannot wait to see how `Class 2’ further builds on it,” she said.

     

  • Trump slams social media firms for ‘silencing millions’

    U.S. President Donald Trump criticized social media companies on Friday for silencing “millions of people” in what he called an act of censorship.

    Trump did not mention any of the companies by name.

    On Tuesday, Facebook, Twitter Inc and Google removed hundreds of accounts tied to an alleged Iranian propaganda operation, while Facebook took down a second campaign it said was linked to Russia.

    “Social Media Giants are silencing millions of people. Can’t do this even if it means we must continue to hear Fake News like CNN, whose ratings have suffered gravely.

    People have to figure out what is real, and what is not, without censorship!” Trump said.

     

  • Google deletes YouTube accounts with ties to Iran

    Google has announced deleting 58 accounts with ties to Iran on its video sharing platform, YouTube and some other of its sites.

    The recent removals targeted 39 channels on YouTube, which had more than 13,000 views in the United States, as well as 13 accounts on the social networking site Google Plus and six accounts on Blogger, its blogging platform, the company said.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports Kent Walker, Google’s senior vice president of global affairs, said in a blog post that each of the accounts had ties to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, or IRIB, which is tied to Iran’s ayatollah, and that they “disguised their connection to this effort”.

    Google’s announcement comes days after Facebook suspended hundreds of accounts on its site and photo-sharing app, Instagram, that originated in Iran as well as Russia, and Twitter made a similar move.

    At the time, YouTube confirmed it had removed one account, called Liberty Front Press, which appeared to have connections to Iranian state media.

    Google also revealed on Thursday that it took down 42 additional channels on YouTube that had ties to the Russian government’s online troll army, called the Internet Research Agency, since the company testified to Congress in November.

    Facebook had acted on a tip from the cyber-security firm FireEye, which later shared its findings with Google and Twitter.

    In response, Google briefed law enforcement officials as well as congressional investigators about its findings on Thursday, the company said.

    The revelations of further coordinated inauthentic activity online are likely to grab the attention of lawmakers.

    The Senate Intelligence Committee plans to question top executives from Facebook, Google and Twitter next month on their efforts to protect their platforms from disinformation and other digital ills.

    On Thursday, the Republican chairman of the panel, Sen. Richard Burr, said he had rejected an offer by Google to send Walker to testify. “I told them I wasn’t accepting the senior vice president,” Burr said.

    Earlier this week, Microsoft announced it had found evidence of a Russia-backed effort to spoof key websites, including those for conservative think tanks, in an apparent bid to hack into visitors to those pages.

    In its blog post, Google said it recently took similar actions to block “attempts by state-sponsored actors in various countries to target political campaigns, journalists, activists, and academics located around the world”.

    Google said it most recently notified Gmail users who received suspicious emails “from a wide range of countries” on Monday.

     

  • WhatsApp users spend 85 billion hours in-app + other interesting stats

    WhatsApp users spend 85 billion hours in-app + other interesting stats

    According to a report released by Apptopia WhatsApp users spent a cumulative of 85 billion hours using the Facebook-owned messaging app in the past three months.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports that the data released by the US-based app analytics company showed that people globally spent 85 billion hours on WhatsApp that has 1.5 billion users.

    Put into perspective, this is 3.5 billion days or over nine million years — 9,582,650 years to be precise. This means that every human being on the planet spent 11.425 hours on the app in the period.

    Conversely, users spent 31 billion hours on its parent company Facebook.

    “It’s clear that WhatsApp is the global messaging app of choice,” Apptopia’s spokesperson Adam Blacker was quoted by Forbes as saying.

    “Apps having to do with communication take up most of our time spent on our mobile apps,” Blacker added.

    The top 10 apps overall in terms of time spent globally are WhatsApp, WeChat, Facebook, Messenger, Pandora, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Google Maps and Spotify.

    Top Sessions by Apps-2

    The data does not put into consideration all of China’s third-party Android app stores, or WeChat and other China-focused apps would very likely top the standings. Even so, WeChat is in second place overall, the report said.

    Four of the top 10 apps by time spent are Facebook’s Messenger, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Google is a leader as well, with YouTube and Google Maps in the top 10 apps by time spent overall.

    Gamers were not left out in the report and users 3.31 billion hours playing Candy Crush Saga. Among the games, Clash of Clans topped the list with 3.83 billion hours time spent followed by My Talking Tom, Candy Crush Saga, Fortnite, Lords Mobile, Subway Surfers, Helix Jump, Slither.io, PUBG Mobile and Fishdom.

    TEST-3

    According to market research company eMarketer, American adults spend an average of more than three and a half hours a day on their mobile devices. In countries like Nigeria that are basically mobile-first and others that are mobile-only, with very low PC penetration, that’s likely to be even higher.

    According to Apptopia, it gets its numbers by being integrated into hundreds of thousands of apps, allowing it to see performance data globally.

     

  • Google faces lawsuit for unwanted tracking of phone locations

    Google faces lawsuit for unwanted tracking of phone locations

    A Californian man has filed a lawsuit against Internet search giant, Google for invading people’s privacy by tracking the whereabouts of smartphones users despite “location history” settings being turned off.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports the suit filed on Friday seeks unspecified damages along with class-action status to represent all US iPhone or Android smartphone users who turned off location history in order not to have their movements logged by Google.

    “Google expressly represented to users of its operating system and apps that the activation of certain settings will prevent the tracking of users’ geolocations. This representation was false,” the lawsuit read.

    The suit accuses Google of violating privacy law, and cites a news report last week confirmed by university researchers.

    Google did not respond to a request for comment.

    After the report, Alphabet-owned Google modified its support page to read that turning off location history off “does not affect other location services on your device, like Google Location Services and Find My Device”.

    Location data may also be tracked for use in other services such as maps or search, the support page indicated.

    The page had previously indicated that turning location history off meant places visited were not stored by Google.

    The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a non-profit public interest group, said it has sent a letter to the US Federal Trade Commission to look into whether Google has violated a 2011 consent order.

    “Google’s subsequent changes to its policy, after it has already obtained location data on Internet users, fails to comply with the 2011 order,” Epic quoted its letter as stating.

     

  • Free Wi-Fi: Google calls for partnership

    Internet giant, Google is calling for partnerships to bring free Internet connectivity to millions of people across the globe through its Google Station.

    TheNewsGuru reports Google Station is a Google service that allows partners to roll out Wi-Fi hotspots in public places by providing software and advice on hardware to turn fiber connections into Wi-Fi.

    This is coming on the heels of Google announcing the service for Nigeria at its Google For Nigeria 2018 event.

    “We’ll be working with network operators, fibre providers, system integrators and other partners to bring fast Wi-Fi to more locations. Send us your information…, and we’ll reach out if there’s a way for us to work together,” said the search giant on its Google Station website.

    At the Google For Nigeria 2018 event, Google officially unveiled the service for Nigeria aimed at providing free high-quality, high-speed Wi-Fi hotspots to millions of Nigerians.

    The launching made Nigeria the fifth country to get Google Station, after India, Indonesia, Thailand and Mexico.

    Google’s Country Director, Mrs Juliet Ehimuan-Chiazor, who made the disclosure in Lagos on Thursday, said the station would roll out in 200 locations in five cities across Nigeria by the end of 2019.

    “Google for Nigeria on its second year made some big announcements aimed at helping more people in Nigeria, and across Africa to benefit from the opportunities the web has to offer.

    “In a bid to make the internet more easily accessible to people in Nigeria, Google is launching Google Station for Nigeria – a programme to provide high quality, high-speed Wi-Fi hotspots.

    “Google Station will be rolling out in 200 locations in five cities across Nigeria by the end of 2019, bringing Wi-Fi to millions of people.

    “The sites include markets, transport hubs, shopping malls and universities,” she said.

    The official said that Google launched the Google Station in partnership with 21st Century, one of the largest fibre network providers in Nigeria.

    She said that Google was also making search better for the ordinary Africans, noting that job search it launched in March in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, was rolling out in 29 new countries.

    Ehimuan-Chiazor said that, in Nigeria, Google was launching a search experience that would allow users to explore their health conditions based on symptoms, adding that it was making a recipe search.

    She said that Street View’s Discover Nigeria Gallery had been expanded to include more Nigerian wonders including the National Museum in Lagos, Olumo Rock in Abeokuta, Millennium Park in Abuja and Lekki Conservation Centre in Lagos.

    She said that the Google for Nigeria had updated several products from its “Go” initiative launched in 2017, and added new features to include Google Go, YouTube Go, Google Map Go and Android Go.

    “The Go product suite was aimed at giving people with low bandwidth connections and low-RAM devices the best possible Google experience.

    “Google Go reads web pages out loud and highlights each word so users can follow along.

    “For YouTube Go, users will be able to browse downloaded YouTube Go videos saved as files right from the gallery to their phones.

    “Google Maps Go will provide users with turn-by-turn directions, whether they are travelling by car, bus or walking on foot,’’ she said.

    The official said that Android Go, Launched in Nigeria and 29 other African countries early this year, gave people coming online for the first time a reliable smartphone experience.

    She said that Google had trained no fewer than over 2.5 million of the 10 million Africans, it promised to train by 2022 on digital skills.

    She added that Google trained another 9,000 Africans in mobile app development.

    According to her, the Google’s Launchpad Accelerator Africa initiative graduated 12 promising startups from the continent in June.

    “The application process of the ongoing Google Impact Challenge, part of Google’s $20 million Google.org commitment to Africa over the next five years, closed with over 5,500 entries. The process of selecting the 36 finalists has begun.

    “We are offering new solutions to improve and expand access in Nigeria and across Africa.

    “These launches demonstrate our commitment to Africa through products built to help people in Africa to make the most of the Internet,” Ehimuan-Chiazor said.

     

  • Nigeria makes number one Google ranking

    Nigeria has made a crucial mark in Google ranking in what a senior partner manager at the Internet giant sees could prove critical to its future business.

    TheNewsGuru reports the Senior Partner Manager at Google, David Steinacker, at Google For Nigeria 2018 Publishers Masterclass, announced that Nigeria has become the number one country with mobile search query in the world.

    This translate to mean that Google now gets more mobile search queries from Nigerians using mobile devices such as smartphones than it does from other countries worldwide.

    The shift in mobile searches marks an important milestone for Google that could prove critical to the Internet giant’s future business.

    TheNewsGuru reports 58% of Google’s total search queries come from mobile devices and 20% of mobile search queries are voice queries.

    This is even as Google handles 63% of all desktop search queries, and over 94% of mobile search on the Internet.

    The tech giant says its voice recognition technology is getting better and better, and that the technology is now 95% accurate.

    While, however, Google’s Senior Partner Manager did not explicitly identify other countries in the mobile search query ranking, Ken Tokusei, PM Director International Search at Google, revealed a new search trend pattern that showed the top Internet search criteria of Nigerians using Google search.

    He revealed that World Cup fixtures, Wizkid soco, Npower, Prepare banga soup, Who is the richest musician in Nigeria, How to dance shaku shaku, Black panther, Bbnaija and How to tie gele, are so far, topping search trend on Google in 2018.

    “Our new search experience makes it easier for you to search your favourite recipes right within Google search.

    “Health queries are common on the web, so we are making it easier with a new search experience that allows you to explore health conditions related to symptoms,” Ken said.

    In the past four years or so, analysing lists based on search terms that had a high spike in traffic, the trend has followed a similar pattern.

    See what was trending in 2017

    See what was trending in 2016

    See what was trending in 2015