Facebook’s love for news will never cease – even though ‘Newsfeed’ becomes ‘Feed,’ a new feature ‘Facebook News’ introduced for France. Twitter finds new love in ‘Good Bots.’ JPMorgan’s report sees over $1 trillion in yearly revenues from Metaverse. Reserve Bank of India’s Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar’s not-so-positive statement for cryptocurrencies makes investors worried.
Facebook Newsfeed is Feed, News for French audience, Twitter welcomes good bots
On the one hand, Facebook has changed its News Feed to Feed – a step to probably stop misinformation. On the other hand, for the French audience, it has introduced Facebook News.
This week Facebook has introduced Facebook News in France. For this Facebook has partnered with BFMTV, Capital, Femme Actuelle, Gala, Geo, L’Equipe, L’Express, Libération, RMC and Voici.
Facebook News is a dedicated tab on Facebook in the bookmarks section that will spotlight news stories from these sources.
The Key features of Facebook News as mentioned on the official site:
- Today’s stories: Catch up on the latest news chosen by a team of independent journalists as it breaks throughout the day.
- Personalisation: Find new outlets based on what you read, share and follow.
- News sections: Dive deeper into business, entertainment, health, science & tech and sport.
- Controls: Choose the articles, topics or publishers you want to see and hide those you don’t.
- Collections: Discover a deeper dive into major news topics, such as upcoming elections or any prominent sports event, through multiple articles and videos.
Bots are often misunderstood and linked with malicious use of automation with the capability to spam. In 2020, Twitter labeled the bots and used Bot Sentinel to track troll bots and untrustworthy Twitter accounts. Bot Sentinel uses machine learning and AI to study Twitter accounts, classify them as trustworthy or untrustworthy, and identify bots. It then stores those accounts in a database to track each account daily.
Twitter recognized the fact that not all bots are untrustworthy, not all of them create fake trends to misguide users. There are several bots that helped during the COVID outbreak, weather calamities, and so on. It’s time to welcome them by certainly these labels.
Additionally, for the Direct Messages on Twitter, one can now pin up to six conversations that will stay at the top of your DM inbox.
Brands are active, but Metaverse is still unknown to half of population
As per media reports, the Gartner survey found that 58 percent of respondents have either heard of the metaverse but do not know what it means, or think they understand the metaverse but would struggle to explain it to someone else.
Only 6 percent of people identify as being comfortable enough in their understanding of the metaverse to explain it to others.
On the other hand, brands are quite engaged and preparing themselves for early entry.
JPMorgan, the largest bank in the U.S., in a publication ‘Opportunities in the metaverse’ reports metaverse will likely to infiltrate every sector in some way in the coming years, with the market opportunity estimated at over $1 trillion in yearly revenues.
Media reports the bank will become the first lender to arrive in the metaverse having opened a lounge in Decentraland.
Another report by Credit Suisse said metaverse has enormous potential to further expand screen time and drive more bandwidth consumption. In India, the data usage will increase by 20 times across the globe by 2032, and telecom operators Bharti Airtel and Reliance Jio are suitably placed to benefit from the surge in India,
Privacy Sandbox on Android
Google has announced that it is building the Privacy Sandbox on Android with the goal of introducing new, more private advertising solutions. The objective is to limit sharing of user data with third parties and operate without cross-app identifiers, including advertising ID.
We realize that other platforms have taken a different approach to ads privacy, bluntly restricting existing technologies used by developers and advertisers. We believe that — without first providing a privacy-preserving alternative path — such approaches can be ineffective and lead to worse outcomes for user privacy and developer businesses.
Our goal with the Privacy Sandbox on Android is to develop effective and privacy enhancing advertising solutions, where users know their information is protected, and developers and businesses have the tools to succeed on mobile. While we design, build and test these new solutions, we plan to support existing ads platform features for at least two years, and we intend to provide substantial notice ahead of any future changes.
RBI’s statement for cryptocurrencies upset investors
T Rabi Sankar, Deputy Governor, Reserve Bank of India, delivered a keynote address on February 15 at the Annual Banking Technology Conference and Awards. He told that they examined the arguments proffered by those advocating that cryptocurrencies should be regulated and found that none of them stand up to basic scrutiny.
He said Advanced Economies (AEs) have more mature markets which can withstand the potential disruption from cryptocurrencies. They are, therefore, in a better position to wait and watch.
AEs have quicker legal systems and hence concerns of misuse of cryptos can be addressed through the legal systems. In India, on the other hand none of the major instances of consumer exploitation have been redressed legally.
AEs have the political power to control the crypto companies. The recent instance where the US recovered bitcoins from the hackers of the oil pipeline in US, is an example that notwithstanding claims of non-traceability of cryptocurrencies, AE Governments wield enough power to access the records. India or most other countries would lack such advantages.
Click here to read the complete arguments.
Have a great weekend.
