Majuro, Marshall Islands | AFP | The world is not moving fast enough to curb global warming and needs immediate action to address the issue, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told an online climate change conference Thursday. Guterres issued the call to arms ahead of next month’s COP24 climate talks in …
Read More »Uber loss tops $1 bn as it seeks to diversify
San Francisco, United States | AFP | Ride-share company Uber on Wednesday said that its net loss topped a billion dollars in the recently ended quarter as it pumped money into bikes, scooters, freight and food delivery. While a private company, Uber has taken to sharing quarterly earnings figures as …
Read More »Facebook shuts more accounts aimed at political meddling
San Francisco, United States | AFP | Facebook on Tuesday said it shut down more accounts aimed at influencing the US midterm election and that it is exploring a possible link to Russia. “As we’ve continued to investigate, we detected and removed some additional Facebook and Instagram accounts,” head of …
Read More »Facebook stops requiring arbitration of sexual harassment claims
San Francisco, United States | AFP | Facebook on Friday said it will no longer require employees to resolve sexual harassment claims via arbitration, mirroring a move by Google. The change of workplace rules at the world’s leading social network will allow complaints of such improprieties to be aired openly …
Read More »Google workers walk out in global protest over harassment
New York, United States | AFP | Thousands of Google employees joined a coordinated worldwide walkout Thursday to protest the US tech giant’s handling of sexual harassment, staging protests from Singapore to London to New York to the company’s California campus. The “Google Walkout For Real Change” account that sprang …
Read More »Fake news accounts: Nigerian social media’s copycat issue
a Lagos, Nigeria | AFP | When one of Africa’s richest men joined Twitter and posted his first tweet on May 11 this year, the fanfare in his native Nigeria was immediate. News that Femi Otedola had opened an account spread like wildfire and the billionaire head of Forte Oil …
Read More »Typical tweet shorter since character length doubled
San Francisco, United States | AFP | Twitter on Tuesday confirmed that a year after doubling the character limit for tweets, the average length of messages fired off in English actually got a smidge shorter. The news promised to allay concerns that raising the character limit from 140 to 280 …
Read More »Gabon official websites hacked: Anonymous group
Libreville, Gabon | AFP | The Anonymous hackers collective on Sunday claimed it hacked into more than 70 Gabon government websites, as part of what it called a campaign against dictatorships. Government sites including the ministries of communications and the civil service were inaccessible on Sunday, as were the websites …
Read More »Facebook simplifies Messenger app
San Francisco, United States | AFP | Facebook on Tuesday announced an overhaul of its Messenger smartphone app in an effort to simplify the service for its 1.3 billion monthly global users. The social network began rolling out a redesigned version featuring three tabs instead of nine, saying it was …
Read More »Japan orders Facebook to improve data protection
Tokyo, Japan | AFP | The Japanese government on Monday ordered Facebook to improve protection of users’ personal information following data breaches affecting tens of millions of people worldwide. Facebook said early this month that hackers accessed the personal data of 29 million users in a breach at the world’s …
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