Facebook Inc has announced that it would expand its Coronavirus Information Centre to 17 more countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including Nigeria.
Kojo Boakye, Facebook’s Head of Public Policy, Africa, who disclosed on Thursday, noted that the information centres form part of Facebook’s effort to help the global fight against the Coronavirus pandemic.
According to him, Facebook will be providing people with the latest news and information from trusted health authorities.
“The COVID-19 Information Centre features at the top of the news feed that provides a central place for people to get informed about the virus.
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Facebook on Tuesday said the coronavirus pandemic has users flocking to its services while it undermines ad revenue on which the world’s biggest social network depends.
Online voice and video calls at Facebook-owned Messenger and WhatsApp have more than doubled in places hit hard by the new coronavirus, according to a post by vice president of analytics Alex Schultz and Jay Parikh, vice president of engineering.
“As the pandemic expands and more people practice physically distancing themselves from one another, this has also meant that many more people are using our apps,” Parikh and Schultz said.
Much of the increased …
London (CNN Business) Governments and medical officials are scrambling to provide the public with accurate and timely information about the novel coronavirus. But those efforts are being undermined by the spread of medical misinformation and fake cures on one of the world’s most popular messaging platforms.
Facebook has taken down an ad from President Donald Trump’s campaign which critics said misled people into believing it was an official message about the US census.
The ads encouraged readers to “take the official 2020 Congressional District Census,” but clicking on the messages directed users to a Trump campaign website.
Facebook has been under pressure from activists who have said its hand-off policy on political messages enables the proliferation of misinformation.
But the leading social network has also said that as part of its fact-checking operation it would take down any ads or posts which mislead users about the …
Facebook is reportedly rethinking its plans for its own digital currency after resistance from regulators.
It is now considering a system with digital versions of established currencies, including the dollar and the Euro, according to Bloomberg and tech site The Information.
The Libra Association, which Facebook founded to create the currency, will continue its work, the reports said.
The plan will include Libra, the company said in response.
The social network’s digital wallet is now expected to launch this autumn, several months later than initially planned, according to the reports.
Of earlier reports that it might drop Libra itself, the …
Political ad spending is surging for the US election, with digital campaigns — led by Facebook — accounting for nearly one-fifth of the total, researchers said Wednesday.
A report by eMarketer predicted total campaign media spending jumping 63 percent from four years ago to $6.89 billion, attributing the rise to the “intensity” of the presidential race as well as many congressional contests.
The forecast for the 2019-2020 election cycle covers spending on federal, state and local ads, including political action committee ads for candidates and lobbying activities.
Political ad spending, which is generally highest during presidential campaigns, is likely to …
Engineer and technology entrepreneur Elon Musk has taken another swipe at a social networking service company, Facebook, calling it ‘lame.’
Musk was reacting to a Twitter post by actor Sacha Baron Cohen who is calling for Facebook to be regulated by the government over its content.
In the post, Baron Cohen, who’s a vocal critic of social media platforms, including Twitter and Google video platform YouTube, wrote: ‘We don’t let 1 person control the water for 2.5 billion people. We don’t let 1 person control electricity for 2.5 billion people. Why do we let 1 man control the information seen …
The attack came amid escalating tensions between Democratic leadership and the company.
CNN reports that the Speaker expressed grievance at her weekly press conference on Capitol Hill.
Responding to a question about the power held by Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, Pelosi accused the company of being “accomplices for misleading the American people with money from god-knows where”.
“All they want are their tax cuts and no antitrust action against them.
“They didn’t even check on the money from Russian in the last election and everyone thought they
Leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, has raised the alarm that his Facebook account and that of Radio Biafra have been cloned.
Kanu who disclosed this in a statement he personally signed and obtained by Sunday Sun yesterday said that the “shameful practice by Facebook Nigeria to allow the suppression of truth and free speech is indirectly supporting state-sponsored terrorism in Nigeria.”
He also disclosed that they have made official complaint to Facebook headquarters in California, USA, adding that IPOB expects the management of the group to clear its reputation, and desist from the shameful act.…
Facebook on Thursday said it is investigating a report that a database containing names and phone numbers of more than 267 million users was exposed online.
The database was made available for download last week on an online hacker forum that apparently belonged to a crime group, according to a blog post on the website Comparitech.
“We are looking into this issue, but believe this is likely information obtained before changes we made in the past few years to better protect people’s information,” a Facebook spokesperson told AFP.
Comparitech said that security researcher Bob Diachenko spotted the database, which …
The Arab Spring gave way to bloodletting in Syria, a refugee exodus and surging jihadist violence. Obama gave way to Trump. The United Kingdom chose to Brexit. And for many around the world, while the 2010s began with hope for a more equitable world, they end with a slide towards nationalistic populism.
The following is a look at some of the people and events that shaped the past decade:
– America divided –
The United States will begin the 2020s with Donald Trump in the Oval Office, as a president of a country riven by political, societal and economic discord …
The law gives ministers powers to tell platforms to put warnings next to posts they deem false, but that activists fear could be used to curb free speech.
