New Delhi, India | AFP | Mobile internet usage in India has increased ninefold in a single year, after the launch of a new operator sparked a telecoms price war, according to a new report. Indians used nearly 1.3 billion gigabytes of data in March 2017 compared with around 150 …
Read More »Saudi king earns more retweets than Trump, Twiplomacy study says
The pope and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have engaged with Trump via subtweets, a form of posting typically used for criticism Geneva, Switzerland | AFP | Donald Trump may be lighting up Twitter with strange new words and attacks on allies but in the battle for most attention per …
Read More »LONDON: We can confirm that ‘covfefe’ is not an English word. Yet
Trump cryptic tweet ‘covfefe’ trends on Twitter Washington, United States | AFP | Not for the first time, a Donald Trump tweet has lit up the internet. But this time, users the world over have been left scratching their heads over “covfefe”: a bizarre word apparently created by the president. …
Read More »Egyptians brace for austere Ramadan after reforms
Cairo, Egypt | AFP | Ramadan is a time for daytime fasting and lavish evening feasts, but Egyptians are scaling back preparations for the Muslim holy month this year after austerity measures fuelled decades-high inflation. At a Cairo supermarket, Rana, a web designer and mother of two, said she was …
Read More »Kanye West exits social media
New York, United States | AFP | Rap superstar Kanye West, long a prolific user of Twitter, has disappeared from social media after months of erratic behavior. The husband of reality television star Kim Kardashian appeared to have deleted his accounts on Twitter and Instagram, with searches Friday for his …
Read More »Facebook murder suspect tracked, police say he has committed suicide
Facebook murder suspect committed suicide after brief chase: police Washington, United States | AFP | The US man wanted for killing an elderly man in Ohio and posting a video of the murder on Facebook fatally shot himself Tuesday after a brief pursuit in neighboring Pennsylvania, police said. Steve Stephens, 37, …
Read More »Twitter drops egg icon in battle with internet ‘trolls’
San Francisco, United States | AFP | An egg icon that for years marked profiles of new Twitter users was gone Monday, a victim of “trolls” who often hid behind them to launch anonymous online attacks. For seven years, anyone who created a Twitter account automatically got an egg icon as …
Read More »Twitter makes room for more characters in tweets
San Francisco, United States | AFP | Twitter on Thursday began rolling out changes to let people pack more into tweets, subtracting from the character count names of those being replied to in posts. The latest software modification at the one-to-many messaging service comes about a year after Twitter set out …
Read More »Spanish woman sentenced for Twitter jokes about Franco-era assassination
Madrid, Spain | AFP | A Spanish court on Wednesday sentenced a young woman to jail for posting jokes on Twitter about the 1973 assassination of a senior figure in the Franco dictatorship. The National Audience, Spain’s top criminal court, found Cassandra Vera, 21, guilty of glorifying terrorism and humiliating victims …
Read More »Chelsea Clinton joins expanded Expedia board
San Francisco, United States | Travel service Expedia added to its board the daughter of former US president Bill Clinton and former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, according to a public filing posted Friday. Expedia expanded its board from 13 to 14 members and elected Chelsea Clinton to fill the …
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