TheNewsGuru

Tag: Twitter

Twitter

  • President Trump fires Amazon with tweet missile

    US President Donald Trump has accused Amazon.com of not paying enough tax, taking advantage of the US postal system and putting small retailers out of business.

    Trump voiced the accusation against the retail giant in a tweet he posted on his official Twitter handle on Thursday.

    However, the president did not substantiate his accusation with evidence, and did not suggest any actions he would take.

    Trump has attacked Amazon and its Chief Executive Jeff Bezos several times, and his latest comment came a day after reports he was obsessed with the world’s largest online retailer and wanted to rein in its growing power, possibly with federal antitrust or competition laws.

    “I have stated my concerns with Amazon long before the Election. Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state & local governments, use our Postal System as their Delivery Boy (causing tremendous loss to the US), and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business!” Trump tweeted early on Thursday.

    Amazon shares fell as much as 4.5 percent in morning trade, but recovered and closed up just over 1 percent. The stock dropped 5 percent on Wednesday following the reports.

    Amazon is yet to comment on the tweet.

    The retailer and cloud computing pioneer is the latest company Trump has singled out for praise or condemnation

     

  • Zuckerberg’s net worth falls by N5 trillion as Facebook shares drop by 18%

    Zuckerberg’s net worth falls by N5 trillion as Facebook shares drop by 18%

    Worlds’ fifth richest person and founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, valued at $71 billion (roughly N25 trillion) has reportedly lost about $14 billion (roughly N5 trillion) of his net worth.

    This is as a result of 18% fall in Facebook market shares especially after Zuckerberg agreed to testify before Congress on the recent crisis rocking the social media platform, arising from Cambridge Analytica.

    Facebook shares fell by 5% on Tuesday only after the Facebook founder made the confirmation of appearing before Congress.

    The 18% fall in Facebook’s stock has wiped out nearly $80 billion (roughly N28 trillion) from the social networking giant’s market value in the period of the still raging crisis that started March 16.

    According to reports, Tech stocks in general have taken a hit since the Facebook debacle started with Nasdaq down by 6%.

    YouTube owner Google and Twitter, have both nosedived as well. Shares of Google parent Alphabet fell by 7% since March 16 while Twitter has plunged 20%. Twitter was down by 12% alone on Tuesday.

    According to Craig Birk, executive vice president of portfolio management at investing firm Personal Capital in a note Tuesday, as quoted by CNN, said, “While the scandal is likely to blow over, investors should be aware that a continued sell-off in this sector would not be surprising, and if another scandal were to hit, it just might break the tech sector’s back”.

    Meanwhile, Zuckerberg is still worth $61 billion (roughly N21 trillion), though.

     

  • Like Facebook, Google; Twitter bans cryptocurrency adverts

    Twitter Inc is to ban most advertising of cryptocurrencies on its platform, joining Facebook and Google in a clampdown on the nascent industry, the company said in a statement.

    The San Francisco-based firm will this week launch a policy that prohibits advertising of initial coin offerings (ICOs), a form of crowd funding used to raise cash by creating new coins.

    Also adverts that promote token sales and crypto wallet services, the company said in a statement.

    The policy will also ban adverts from crypto-exchanges, with some limited exceptions.

    Twitter said this month it was taking measures to prevent crypto-related accounts from “engaging with others in a deceptive manner’’, but it has faced calls to go further after bans by Facebook and Google.

    Facebook restricted crypto-related adverts in February, while Google announced a ban on March 14 that comes into force in June.

  • Tweetdecking: Twitter suspends several accounts

    Tweetdecking: Twitter suspends several accounts

    Continuing its tirade against the “tweetdeckers”, Twitter has suspended several popular accounts known for stealing tweets or mass-retweeting tweets into manufactured virality.

    According to Buzzfeed, accounts, including @Dory, @GirlPosts, @SoDamnTrue, Girl Code/@reiatabie, Common White Girl/@commonwhitegiri, @teenagernotes, @finah, @holyfag, and @memeprovider were among the handles that were swept in the purge.

    Several of these accounts were very popular with hundreds of thousands or even millions of followers.

    In addition to stealing people’s tweets without credit, some of these accounts are known as “tweetdeckers” due to their practice of teaming up in exclusive Tweetdeck groups and mass-retweeting one another’s – and paying customers’ – tweets into forced virality, the report said.

    Tweetdecking is an explicit violation of Twitter’s spam policy, which does not allow users to “sell, purchase, or attempt to artificially inflate account interactions”.

    According to Twitter’s rules, violating this policy is grounds for permanent suspension; as is creating a new account to evade a permanent suspension.

     

  • Cryptocurrency scam on Twitter: “We are on it” – Jack Dorsey

    As the issue of copying verified Twitter accounts to trick cryptocurrency users is becoming increasingly prevalent, the microblogging company has said that it is working to curb the rise of these copycat handles.

    Company CEO Jack Dorsey on Tuesday replied to a tweet that complained about the ongoing cryptocurrency scam on Twitter in which several users have been tricked and their digital assets stolen.

    “We are on it,” Dorsey replied to a user who questioned the CEO if the company was taking note of it, Coindesk.com reported.

    On February 26, Dorsey had said that his company was aware of the issue and they “are fixing” the problem.

    Several users have been complaining about being duped on Twitter by fraudulent offers that promise huge amount of Ether cryptocurrency in return of small initial deposits.

    These offers are being made by accounts that mimic well-known industry members and have a “blue tick” (verified account).

    As a preventive measure, Twitter had banned several accounts, including the support team for cryptocurrency exchange Kraken despite them trying to warn others about the scam. On Tuesday, the ban on Kraken’s customer support handle was lifted.

    “Good news, guys! @krakensupport is back! Strange that our initial appeal was also apparently handled by an automated system. Thank you all for your public outrage. Stay vigilant,” it announced.

    According to the report, the scam began after an influencer posted a tweet regarding a fraudulent offer which was followed by similarly designed accounts.

    In order to make the posts seem more legitimate, the spam accounts posted supportive messages, claiming that they have received the returns.

    On seeing that the threads were posted by “verified accounts”, people fell in the trap and lost digital assets.

     

  • Twitter gets bookmark feature, new share button on mobile platforms

    Social networking giant Twitter on Wednesday announced the launch of new features for its mobile apps, lite versions of mobile apps, and mobile website.

    The biggest highlight of the update is the addition of Bookmarks to allow users to save tweets for quicker access later.

    Apart from that, Twitter has also added options such as sharing via Twitter Direct Message, email, and on text message.

    The update will be rolled out for users on the Android app, iOS app, Twitter Lite, and mobile.twitter.com (mobile website).

    Twitter claims the update comes after numerous users suggested its implementation.

    The Bookmark tab can be seen from the menu placed under the profile button on the app, which has other tabs such as Profile, Lists, Moments, and Settings.

    Talking about the “Send via Direct Message” feature, it is similar to its predecessor and offers the preview of a tweet in the user’s DM.

    And, lastly, “Share Via” gives options of sharing the tweet link across apps including Messages, email, Notes, or other supported options.

    On iOS, at least, we have seen the redesigned Share tab in testing for the past couple of weeks, with the official rollout taking place on all mobile platforms this week.

    “Thank you for being part of this process – your feedback was valuable in building this update, and it made it all the more fun for us as we built a new feature for you.

    “As a result, we all have an easier way to save, share, and stay informed,” said Jesar Shah, Product Manager at Twitter commenting on customer feedback for the implementation of these new features.

     

  • Twitter CEO calls for RFP to fix ‘broken’ platform

    Twitter CEO calls for RFP to fix ‘broken’ platform

    Twitter Inc. has launched a request for proposal (RFP) process soliciting for help to cast the widest net possible for great ideas and implementations to fix the ‘brokenness’ of the microblogging platform.

    Twitter Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jack Dorsey in a statement made this known on Thursday while acknowledging that the platform has witnessed abuse; harassment; troll armies; manipulation through bots and human-coordination; misinformation campaigns; and increasingly divisive echo chambers.

    “We’re committing Twitter to help increase the collective health, openness, and civility of public conversation, and to hold ourselves publicly accountable towards progress.

    “Why? We love instant, public, global messaging and conversation. It’s what Twitter is and it’s why we‘re here. But we didn’t fully predict or understand the real-world negative consequences. We acknowledge that now, and are determined to find holistic and fair solutions.

    “We have witnessed abuse, harassment, troll armies, manipulation through bots and human-coordination, misinformation campaigns, and increasingly divisive echo chambers. We aren’t proud of how people have taken advantage of our service, or our inability to address it fast enough,” the Twitter CEO said.

    He went further to say that while experts at the platform are working to fix the many challenges, Twitter Inc. has been accused of apathy, censorship, political bias, and optimizing for her business and share price instead of the concerns of society.

    “This is not who we are, or who we ever want to be,” Jack said, adding “We’ve focused most of our efforts on removing content against our terms, instead of building a systemic framework to help encourage more healthy debate, conversations, and critical thinking. This is the approach we now need”.

    He further stated: “Recently we were asked a simple question: could we measure the “health” of conversation on Twitter? This felt immediately tangible as it spoke to understanding a holistic system rather than just the problematic parts.

    “If you want to improve something, you have to be able to measure it. The human body has a number of indicators of overall health, some very simple, like internal temperature. We know how to measure it, and we know some methods to bring it back in balance”.

    Jack revealed experts Cortico and Laboratory for Social Machines introduced his company to the concept of measuring conversational health.

    “They came up with four indicators: shared attention, shared reality, variety of opinion, and receptivity. We don’t yet know if those are the right indicators of conversation health for Twitter. And we don’t yet know how best to measure them, or the best ways to help people increase individual, community, and ultimately, global public health.

    “What we know is we must commit to a rigorous and independently vetted set of metrics to measure the health of public conversation on Twitter. And we must commit to sharing our results publicly to benefit all who serve the public conversation.

    “We simply can’t and don’t want to do this alone. So we’re seeking help by opening up an RFP process to cast the widest net possible for great ideas and implementations. This will take time, and we’re committed to providing all the necessary resources,” he said.

     

  • If President Trump violates Privacy Policy, he’d be sanctioned – Twitter’s VP

    If President Trump violates Privacy Policy, he’d be sanctioned – Twitter’s VP

    Twitter has said if US President Donald Trump should violate privacy policy guiding the microblogging platform, he would be cautioned.

    Bruce Daisley, Twitter’s vice president (VP) of Europe, the Middle East and Africa, stated this in an interview with BBC Radio.

    “If someone tweets private information… private address, phone number — then there are no-go areas where we don’t permit that,” Daisley said.

    “Were he (Trump) to do that, just picking a hypothetical example, then those would be areas” that were grounds for discipline, the Twitter executive added.

    “We would caution him to remove that tweet for sure,” he said.

    However, the micro-blogging platform has clarified that it will not block world leaders from tweeting.

    Although it didn’t directly name Trump, in a blog post called “World Leaders on Twitter,” the company said that there has been a lot of discussion about political figures and world leaders on the platform.

    “Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial tweets would hide important information people should be able to see and debate,” Twitter said.

    “It would also not silence that leader, but it would certainly hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions,” the blog post read.

    Twitter did not block Trump for his “nuclear button” tweet that stormed the social media which, many thought, raised prospect of nuclear war with North Korea.

    A number of users reported to the tweet, with the expectation that threatening a war one is capable of violating Twitter’s revised “Terms of Service,” given the company’s recent crackdown on violent threats.

    The company said it reviews tweets by leaders within the political context that defines them, and enforces its rules accordingly.

    “No one person’s account drives Twitter’s growth, or influences these decisions. We work hard to remain unbiased with the public interest in mind,” it added.

     

  • Twitter 2017 most engaging tweet: “President Trump, you made a big mistake”

    Bernie Sanders’ ‘President Trump, you made a big mistake’ tweet has topped a list of most engaging tweets published by international social media analytics firm, Talkwalker.

    According to Internet Live Stats, “Every second, on average, around 6,000 tweets are tweeted on Twitter, which corresponds to over 350,000 tweets sent per minute, 500 million tweets per day and around 200 billion tweets per year”.

    The results are surprising. U.S. President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed did not make the list. Former U.S. President Barack Obama had more than one tweet that could have appeared, but Talkwalker included only his most popular tweet, Forbes surmised.

    Talkwalker listed the top ten tweets that received the most engagement in terms of replies, likes, and retweets, throughout 2017.

    Of the 200 billion tweets peddled on Twitter in 2017, here are the most engaging of them:

    Bernie Sanders’ tweet following the Women’s March

    Malala’s tweet marking the beginning of her time at Oxford, five years after her attack

    Tweet from JK Rowling on the 20th anniversary of the publishing of the first Harry Potter novel

    Michelle Obama’s tweet celebrating 25 years of marriage

    Blake Lively’s joke tweet saying happy birthday to her husband, Ryan Reynolds, with a photo of Ryan Gosling

    Tweet from LeBron James reacting to a controversy created by Donald Trump

    Tweet from Linkin Park following the death of their singer, Chester Bennington

    Tweet from Ariana Grande following the attack at her concert in Manchester

    https://twitter.com/ArianaGrande/status/866849021519966208

    A Wendy’s Twitter bet to see if a fan could win a lifetime supply of chicken nuggets

    Tweet from Barack Obama following the white supremacist rally and violence in Charlottesville

     

     

    What will Twitter bring in 2018?

     

  • Quick read: 6 valid tips on how to secure your social media accounts

    Social media is now an essential part of business and our daily lives; thus, making it critical that you keep your accounts safe.

    You can only imagine the damage that will be done if someone gained unauthorized access to your accounts. It can ruin your reputation depending on the content of your account that is exposed to the public.

    These tips should help in keeping your social media accounts safe and secured.

    Activate two-factor authentication

    The easiest and most effective way to secure your social media account is two-factor authentication. Two-factor authentication locks out illegitimate users by requiring them to input a verification code sent directly to their mobile phone through SMS text message once they login with the correct username and password combination.

    Verify with links

    Another method to secure your social media accounts it to verify and be careful of what links you click on. Many links on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram direct to legitimate news sources, but there have been numerous incidents when this is not the case.

    Use a strong password

    This point has been over flogged but some people do not still abide by it. They use weak passwords for their social media accounts and at the same time, they use that password for all their accounts. This is risky as once the weak password is discovered, hackers can have access to all your accounts. You can use a password manager like LastPass to keep track of your passwords.

    Use emails that are not public to login

    This is an unknown tactic that very few individuals and businesses use. This means logging in to your social network accounts with a non-public email address, or an email that no one knows about.

    Limit third-party applications

    Another contributor to social media theft are third-party applications. Limiting third-party applications that have access to your social media accounts will leave them near impossible for hackers to gain unauthorised access.

    Be careful where you login

    Many malicious attackers create almost identical login pages dedicated to stealing social media credentials. Be careful where you choose to login, always verify the URL and application before allowing any form of access.