Velvety voiced singer , Burna Boy should be one of the happiest Nigerian stars at the moment.
The singer was recently named as YouTube’s ‘artiste on the rise’ as he was featured on Billboards stationed in Times Square, New York, courtesy of the streaming platform.
The YouTube ‘artiste on the rise’ spot helps creators and artistes celebrate and build their audience daily. They get a dedicated spot within the Trending Tab on YouTube’s homepage once they reach a thousand subscribers.
The programme also creates visibility and promotes a diverse line-up of music’s most important new voices across all genres, connecting them with fans worldwide through in-product promotion and programming, out-of-home, social and fan events at YouTube Spaces.
An excited Burna went ahead to write about this on Instagram as Youtube music displayed the video of his latest trending single ‘YE’ at different billboards in Times Square.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpQ7uLRFuLU/?taken-by=burnaboygram
Tag: youtube
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Burna Boy gets YouTube recognition
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#GoogleForNigeria: Everything you missed at Google for Nigeria 2018
On Thursday, Internet search giant held its second Google for Nigeria event in Nigeria where the foremost tech company announced more products and programs to help more people in Nigeria and across Africa benefit from the opportunities the web has to offer.
At the event, according to Juliet Ehimuan-Chiazor, Country Director, Google Nigeria, said “Access to the internet in Africa is growing but it’s still limited. Only 35 percent of Africans have access to the web, compared to 48 percent in Asia, 67 in Latin America, 85 in Europe and 95 in North America.
“Many internet users in Africa don’t have Wi-Fi in their homes, relying instead on the few public Wi-Fi hotspots to connect, communicate and learn”.
Google Station
On behalf of Google, she announced Google Station for Nigeria: a program to provide high-quality, high-speed Wi-Fi hotspots in partnership with 21st Century, one of the largest fiber network providers in Nigeria.
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. Sites will include markets, transport hubs, shopping malls, universities and more. Nigeria is the fifth country in which we’re launching Google Station, after India, Indonesia, Thailand and Mexico.
Google Go
In April, Google launched Google Go, an app that makes it easy for people to discover the best of the internet, even on low-RAM smartphones or unstable network connections.
Google took it a step further by announcing a new feature within Google Go that reads webpages out loud and highlights each word so you can follow along.
It’s a new and easier way of using the web and it will be available for billions of pages and in 28 languages in the coming weeks.
So whether you’re learning something new, need to have your hands free, or just want to kick back and let your phone do the work, Google can read it for you.
Google Search and Maps
In March, Google launched a job search experience in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa and this week, the tech giant announced expanding it to another 32 countries in Africa.
In Nigeria, Google is also launching a new Search experience that allows users to explore health conditions based on symptoms.
On Google Maps Go, Google said it is launching a navigation feature so that users with low memory phones or unstable network connections can use turn-by-turn directions whether travelling by car, by bus or on foot.
Google also launched more Nigerian landmarks and natural wonders on Street View, so that Nigerians and others can discover more of the country.
Users can now virtually tour the National Museum in Lagos, Olumo Rock in Abeokuta, the Millenium Park in Abuja, Lekki Conservation Centre and many others – all from their phone.
YouTube Go
A year ago, Google introduced YouTube Go, designed to improve users experience when watching videos on a slower network, giving users control over the amount of data used streaming or saving videos, and to let users share videos with friends nearby.
Later this year, users will be able to browse downloaded YouTube Go videos right from their gallery. Google said with the launch of the .yt video file, downloaded YouTube Go videos will behave more like files, enabling users to also share videos via various apps or delete them in bulk. One tap on the video and it automatically plays back within YouTube Go.
Growing with Google
A year ago, Google announced initiatives aimed at getting people the right skills and tools to make the digital world work for them, their businesses and their communities.
As of today, Google digital skills program has trained more than 2.5 million Africans and the search giant is aiming to reach the 10 million promised.
“We’ve also trained more than 9,000 Africans developers who are on their way to becoming Google certified. And together with our partners Udacity and Andela, we’ve provided 15,000 two-month “single course” scholarships and 500 six-month nanodegree scholarships to aspiring and professional developers across Africa,” Google said.
Supporting startups and nonprofit organizations
In March, Google kicked off the first class of Launchpad Accelerator Africa, a program to provide over $3 million in equity-free support to African tech startups including mentorship, working space and access to technology.
Twelve startups graduated, 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 in funding. Their products are being used by approximately 4.5 million people.
The ongoing Google Impact Challenge forms a part of our $20 million Google.org commitment to Africa over the next five years. Google closed the application process with more than 5,500 entries. The company is now in the process of selecting 36 nonprofit and social enterprise innovators who have the best uses of technology to tackle Africa’s biggest challenges.
Android Go
Google said it wants people coming online for the first time to have a powerful and reliable smartphone experience, which is why this year it launched Android 8.1 (Go Edition) in Nigeria and 29 other African countries.
Android Go is a configuration of Android optimized for smartphones with 1GB of RAM memory or less. By enhancing pre-installed Google apps to take up 50 percent less space, Google doubled the amount of available storage on entry-level devices.
Across Africa, Transsion, Nokia, Huawei, and Mobicel have launched various devices, starting at just over 17,000 Naira. Through Android Go, Google is enabling entry-level devices to be affordable, fully functioning smartphones that can browse the web and use apps.
This is all part of Google’s aim of helping more people to get access to computing, and of ongoing commitment to building platforms and products that are useful for billions and that help people to make the most of the internet.
VP Yemi Osinbajo Keynote Address
Vice President Osinbajo, who was present at the Google for Nigeria 2018 event, expressed delight, and said it was a special pleasure to be welcomed to the Googleplex by Google CEO, Sundar Pichai and his great management team a couple weeks ago. Read Osinbajo’s keynote address here.
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YouTube commits $20m to produce authoritative news
Google-owned YouTube on Tuesday announced a new commitment of 20 million dollars to produce authoritative news to counter false online information spreading on its platform, especially at the time of breaking-news events.
According to YouTube, the funding is part of the Google News Initiative (GNI) launched in March to “help journalism thrive in the digital age’’.
This was intended to combat fake news on the platforms of the world’s largest video-sharing network and give publishers more opportunities to make money.
“YouTube is expanding its Player for Publishers, a solution that allows publishers and news organisations to embed YouTube’s video player on their own websites and mobile apps.
“The player, which was rolled out in Europe in 2015, is now being used by over 100 publishers in 25 countries,’’ YouTube said.
Neal Mohan, chief product officer at YouTube, said: “The company is establishing a working group with global news organisations, including Vox Media, Jovem Pan and India Today, to improve news production on the platform.’’
According to him, it will also fund about 20 global markets to support news outlets in building video capabilities and train video productionEncyclopedia staff.
“YouTube pledges to make authoritative sources more readily accessible because it says authoritativeness is essential to viewers, especially during fast-moving, breaking news events.
“It will add a short preview of news articles in search results on YouTube in the U.S. in coming weeks that link to the full article during the initial hours of a major news event.
“This is along with a reminder that breaking news can change rapidly,’’ he noted.
According to Mohan, YouTube starts to display information from third parties such as Wikip and Encyclopaedia Britannica, and video clips on well-established historical and scientific topics.
“We are eager to correct possible distorted information about breaking news events, like the famous moon landing and the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing that killed no fewer than 168 people and injured over 680 others.
“We’re also ready to provide a better experience to users who come to YouTube every day to learn more about what is happening in the world from a diversity of sources,’’ Mohan said.
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YouTube deletes 5 million videos for content violation
YouTube, owned by Alphabet Inc’s Google (GOOGL.O), deleted about 5 million videos from its platform for content policy violations in last year’s fourth quarter before any viewers saw them, it said in a new report that highlighted its response to pressure to better police its online community.
YouTube has been criticized by governments that say it does not do enough to remove extremist content, and by advertisers, such as Procter & Gamble Co (PG.N) and Under Armour Inc (UAA.N) that briefly boycotted the service when they unwittingly ran ads alongside videos the companies deemed inappropriate.
YouTube said in the report Monday that automating enforcement through software “is paying off” in quicker removals. The company said it did not have comparable data from prior quarters.
YouTube said it still needed an in-house team of humans to verify automated findings on an additional 1.6 million videos that were removed only after some users watched the clips.
The automated system did not identify another 1.6 million videos that YouTube took down once they were reported to it by users, activist organizations and governments.
“They still have lots of work to do but they should be praised in the interim,” Paul Barrett, who has followed YouTube as deputy director at the New York University Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, said.Facebook Inc (FB.O) also said on Monday it had removed or put a warning label on 1.9 million pieces of extremist content related to ISIS or al-Qaeda in the first three months of the year, or about double the amount from the previous quarter.
Corralling problematic videos, whether through humans or machines, could help YouTube, a major driver of Google’s revenue, stave off regulation and a sales hit. For now, analysts say demand for YouTube ads remains robust.
The following are steps that YouTube has taken.
EXTREMISM
YouTube officials say the company removes videos that contain hate speech or incite violence. It issues “a strike” to the uploader in each instance and bans uploaders with three strikes in a three-month period. Also banned are government-identified “terrorist organizations” and materials such groups would upload if they could. YouTube shares the digital fingerprints of removed videos with a consortium of tech companies.
Borderline videos get stamped “graphic” and stripped of features that would give them prominence. YouTube added options for advertisers to avoid sponsoring these videos last year.
YouTube automated scans have sped up takedowns of videos tied to ISIS or al-Qaeda. But it has struggled to draw a line on views espoused by white right-wing extremists, who tend to know the rules well and stop short of overt hate speech.
MISINFORMATION
YouTube said it would be difficult to enforce a “truth” policy, leaving the company to look for other policy violations to remove videos with misleading information.
For instance, YouTube could delete a fabricated news report by finding it harasses its subject.
Since autumn, it has promoted “authoritative sources” such as CNN and NBC News in search results to push down problematic material. YouTube also plans to display Wikipedia descriptions alongside videos to counter hoaxes.
But YouTube still is cited as slow to identify misinformation amid major global breaking news events when video bloggers quickly upload commentary. The company preserves other challenged clips that have public interest value or come from politicians.
CHILD ENDANGERMENTYouTube last year began removing videos and issuing strikes when the filming may have put a child in danger or when a cartoon character is used inappropriately.
YouTube does not alert law enforcement or intellectual property owners about these videos because YouTube says it cannot easily identify uploaders and rightsholders. Copyright owners that believe a video violates guidelines or infringes their copyright or trademark can report it to YouTube.
The company last year begin stepping up moderation of comments that inappropriately reference children.
Reuters
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Twitter’s CEO battles President Trump over YouTube HQ shooting
After shooting at YouTube headquarters left a man and two women injured with gunshot wounds, Twitter’s founder and chief executive officer Jack Dorsey has called out on President Donald Trump to other than praying, evolve policies to address incessant shootings in the United States.
Chaos erupted at the Google-owned video sharing platform offices in California on Tuesday when Nasim Aghdam, 39, opened fire on the unsuspecting victims, and killing herself in the process.
TheNewsGuru reports Police have since opened investigations into the motive behind the incident with several reports indicating Aghdam was angered her videos were not getting expected number of views due to YouTube’s filters.
After the White House confirmed monitoring the situation, President Trump took to his Twitter handle to express his “thoughts and prayers are with everybody involved”.
“Was just briefed on the shooting at YouTube’s HQ in San Bruno, California. Our thoughts and prayers are with everybody involved. Thank you to our phenomenal Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders that are currently on the scene,” he tweeted.
Was just briefed on the shooting at YouTube’s HQ in San Bruno, California. Our thoughts and prayers are with everybody involved. Thank you to our phenomenal Law Enforcement Officers and First Responders that are currently on the scene.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 3, 2018
Not before long, Jack responded to the tweet, retweeting it and saying: “We can’t keep being reactive to this, thinking and praying it won’t happen again at our schools, jobs, or our community spots. It’s beyond time to evolve our policies. This is a simple and reasonable approach, and it won’t solve all, but it’s a good start:” while adding a url to March for Our Lives.
We can’t keep being reactive to this, thinking and praying it won’t happen again at our schools, jobs, or our community spots. It’s beyond time to evolve our policies. This is a simple and reasonable approach, and it won’t solve all, but it’s a good start: https://t.co/ADYalbaO57 https://t.co/nbXpH9DDyT
— jack (@jack) April 3, 2018
The Police in San Bruno, California, say there is no evidence yet that the attacker knew the victims, a 36-year-old man said to be in a critical condition, and two women aged 32 and 27.
The suspect: Nasim Aghdam
Nasim Aghdam lived in San Diego in southern California.
Police have revealed few details about her but US media said she ran a number of channels and a website, posting videos on a variety of subjects including those highlighting animal cruelty. The channels have now been deleted.
Aghdam has been variously described as a vegan bodybuilder, artist and rapper.
In January 2017 she posted a video complaining that YouTube was filtering her content, leading to fewer views.
On her website she also ranted against YouTube, saying: “Videos of targeted users are filtered and merely relegated, so that people can hardly see their videos.”
She also quotes Adolf Hitler, saying: “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”
She also wrote: “There is no equal growth opportunity on YouTube or any other video sharing site. Your channel will grow if they want [it] to!”
Aghdam’s father, Ismail, told local US media she was angry because YouTube had stopped paying her for videos.
Video posters can receive money from linked advertisements but the company can “de-monetise” channels for various reasons, taking adverts off. It is unclear if this happened with Aghdam’s material.
Her father said Aghdam had been reported missing on Monday after not answering calls for two days. Police later found her sleeping in her car in Mountain View, 25km (15 miles) south of the YouTube offices in San Bruno and reported this to her family, but they did not detain her.
Her father told police she might go to YouTube as she “hated the company”, local media said.
YouTube terminated her account following the shooting. Her Instagram and Facebook accounts have also been removed.
However, many Twitter users posted her Facebook video rant against YouTube:
Attack inside #YouTube office in #SanBruno by NASIM AGHDAM seems directed at the company because she states her videos are being censored, hear and see her explain: https://t.co/HvIKCPgaJU
— Roeland Roovers (@r0eland) April 4, 2018
What happened in the attack
The suspect is reported to have approached an outdoor patio and dining area at the offices in San Bruno, near San Francisco, at about lunchtime on Tuesday and opened fire with a handgun.
San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini said officers arrived at the offices at 12:48 (19:48 GMT) local time to find a “chaotic scene”, with numerous people fleeing.
Images broadcast on local TV stations showed employees leaving with their hands raised. Other footage showed evacuees forming a queue before being individually frisked by police.
Police said officers had “encountered one victim with an apparent gunshot wound at the site and two additional gunshot victims that had fled to a neighbouring business”.
Inside the complex, officers then found a woman dead from a gunshot wound that was believed to be self-inflicted.
An employee at a nearby fast food restaurant told Fox station KTVU he had treated a young woman who suffered a bullet wound to the leg.
He said he had fashioned a makeshift tourniquet from a bungee cord as they waited for first responders.
Several YouTube employees tweeted about the attack as it was taking place.
Product manager Todd Sherman said people fled the building in panic as the shooting unfolded.
https://twitter.com/tdd/status/981262640830754817
Another employee, Vadim Lavrusik, tweeted he was barricaded in a room with other staff. He later said he had been evacuated.
Active shooter at YouTube HQ. Heard shots and saw people running while at my desk. Now barricaded inside a room with coworkers.
— Vadim Lavrusik (@Lavrusik) April 3, 2018
The three wounded were taken to Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. Officials said the 32-year-old woman’s condition was serious and the 27-year-old’s condition was fair.
A fourth person was also taken to hospital with an ankle injury sustained while trying to escape, Mr Barberini said.
Some 1,700 people work at the YouTube HQ. The company is owned by Google and is the area’s biggest employer.
There had been earlier media reports that the man shot was Aghdam’s boyfriend, but police later said; “At this time there is no evidence that the shooter knew the victims of this shooting or that individuals were specifically targeted.”
Such “active shooter” incidents are overwhelmingly carried out by men – an FBI report found that out of 160 incidents between 2000-2013, only six of the people who opened fire were women.
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Youtube shooting: Woman kills self after shooting three in California
The woman who shot three people at YouTube headquarters in Northern California has been identified as Nasim Aghdam, two law enforcement sources told CNN.
The woman took her own life after the shootings. She was found at the scene and appeared to have killed herself with a handgun, but the investigation is just beginning, San Bruno Police Chief Ed Barberini said.
“We know very, very little right now, and we probably won’t know more until tomorrow morning,” the chief said.
A fourth person was injured as people scrambled off the patio outside the cafe on campus.
The shooter is believed to have known at least one of the victims, two law enforcement officials told CNN.
The shooter’s motive was unclear, Barberini said, adding that it’s unclear whether the shooting was a domestic violence incident.
A spokesman for Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, a level 1 trauma center, said the facility received three patients. One 36-year-old man was in critical condition, one 32-year-old woman was in serious condition and one 27-year-old woman was in fair condition.
Dr. Andre Campbell said the three patients were all conscious and none had yet gone into surgery. When asked how the patients reacted, Campbell said: “Shocked, like we are every time these terrible things happen.”
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EU threatens online platforms with tougher rules on illegal content
The European Commission has called on social media platforms to crack down on hate speech, terrorist propaganda and other illegal content, warning that rules may be toughened if the industry fails to regulate itself.
EU Security Commissioner Julian King said on Monday, after a meeting that included representatives of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
“Illegal terrorist content online has incited too many attacks.
“Today we discussed, with industry, the need for faster action. If possible on a voluntary basis, but if necessary, we’ll look at further steps,’’ King said.
According to European Commission Vice President Andrus Ansip, if platforms will not act proactively, legislators will.
Internet regulation is a hot topic in Germany, where a new law compelling online giants to remove hate speech, fake news and other illegal posts has come under fire from both the media industry and political leaders.
The commission, the EU’s executive, warned ahead of Tuesday’s meeting that greater efforts are required to remove illegal internet content.
“Even if tens of thousands of pieces of illegal content have been taken down, there are still hundreds of thousands more out there.
“Also removal needs to be speedy: the longer illegal material stays online, the greater its reach,’’ King, Ansip and three other commissioners said in a joint statement.
In May 2016, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Microsoft agreed with the commission on a code of conduct aimed at cracking down on illegal hate speech.
A review of its effectiveness is due to be published later this month.
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Extremist content: Google reveals new plans for YouTube
U.S. IT giant Google will increase the number of employees engaged in the detection of extremist content on its video-sharing service YouTube, as well as other materials violating the service’s rules, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said.
In June, Google announced additional measures to counter the spread of extremist data via YouTube.
The company voiced plans to widen the use of technologies to identify extremist- and terrorist-related videos, to attract more experts to its programme of identifying problematic videos, toughening the rules as for the content that did not clearly violate YouTube’s rules and to expand its role in struggle against radical movements.
“Since June, our trust and safety teams have manually reviewed nearly two million videos for violent extremist content, helping train our machine-learning technology to identify similar videos in the future.
“We will continue the significant growth of our teams into next year, with the goal of bringing the total number of people across Google working to address content that might violate our policies to over 10,000 in 2018,” Wojcicki said in an article published on the official blog of YouTube.
The official added that the company was also fighting against aggression in comments, as well as cooperating with a number of child safety groups, such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, in order to ensure fight against predatory behavior.
According to Wojcicki, YouTube has also exerted efforts to increase the “network of academics, industry groups and subject matter experts” that teach the company’s specialists to better respond to the developments in the world and on the Internet.