Former pacer Rudra Pratap Singh announces his retirement on Twitter

Former India pacer R P Singh on Tuesday announced his retirement from the game.

The 32-year-old Singh, a left arm speedster, took to Twitter to announce his decision.

"13 years ago today, on 4th September 2005 was the first time I donned the Indian jersey. It was the stepping-stone to what would become the most cherished moments of my life," Singh wrote on his Twitter account.

"Today as I hang my boots and call it a day, I wish to remember and give thanks to each and everyone who made this journey possible," he said.

His international career spanned six years and the pacer played 82 matches across all three formats and picked up over 100 wickets.

Twitter India head Taranjeet Singh quits, Balaji Krish to be interim chief

Taranjeet Singh, who was elevated as Twitter's Country Director for India in May 2017, has decided to move on.

In a series of tweets late on Tuesday, Singh announced his resignation, saying that Balaji Krish, Twitter's Global Head of Revenue Strategy and Operations, will become the interim country head.

"Hello everyone, after four amazing years, I have decided to move on from @TwitterIndia -- from being one of the first @Twitter employees in #India to building up the sales team from the ground up, to leading our expansion and investments as the India Country Director," Singh said.

Hello everyone, after 4 amazing years, I have decided to move on from @TwitterIndia - from being one of the first @Twitter employees in #India, to building up the sales team from the ground up, to leading our expansion and investments as the India Country Director #AmazingRide pic.twitter.com/qMG4QDvL4a

Facebook, Twitter to defend companies against charges of bias in elections

Facebook and Twitter executives plan to defend their companies in two congressional hearings, arguing they are aggressively trying to root out foreign actors who want to do the United States harm just weeks before the mid-term elections.

Twitter's CEO will also face angry Republicans who claim the companies have shown evidence of bias against conservatives.

In prepared testimony released ahead of a House hearing Wednesday afternoon, Jack Dorsey says his company does not use political ideology to make decisions.

Congress has sharply criticised the social media companies over the last year as it has become clear that they were at the forefront of Russia's interference in the 2016 elections and beyond.

That scrutiny has led to additional criticism over the companies' respect for user privacy and whether conservatives are being censored frustrations that are particularly heightened ahead of the mid-terms.

Fake news: Companies say top bosses may quit over persecution fears

The blow-hot-blow-cold relationship between the government and social media and technology-backed firms seems to have taken a turn for the worse. Some companies now fear exits of their India heads and senior management if the government goes ahead with its plans to carry out criminal proceedings against top bosses over spread of fake news via their platforms.

Apart from global technology giants Google and Facebook (which together have four to five social media platforms), Twitter, LinkedIn, smaller social media portals and payments apps with chat capabilities are planning to approach the government on putting back its plans of booking their top bosses.

While it has not been decided if they would form a common front, the public policy teams in these firms are getting ready for a long discussion with the government. “We are constantly in touch with government officials. We want them to know that we are taking steps to prevent spreading of fake news and such drastic actions are unnecessary,” said a senior public policy executive at one of the tech firms.

Twitter stocks up 5% on S&P 500 inclusion even as analysts forecast decline

Twitter Inc. was a stock market swamp for three years after going public, saddling investors with as much as $32 billion in equity losses. It took another step Monday toward putting that era behind it.

In an action that forces index funds with trillions of dollars in assets to own it, the social media company will replace Monsanto Co. in the S&P 500 prior to the start of trading June 7. A much larger internet rags-to-riches story, Netflix Inc., was added to the S&P 100, S&P Dow Jones Indices said.

Twitter’s 58 percent gain in 2018 would be the fifth-largest in the S&P 500. Reflecting the interest of index-tracking funds, the stock jumped 5.5 percent after news of the addition was disclosed.

Analysts are not sanguine about the stock’s prospects. Their average forecast implies a 19 percent decline over the next 12 months, data compiled by Bloomberg showed.

After Facebook ad ban, Twitter moves to prevent crypto scams on platform

Twitter is taking measures to prevent cryptocurrency-related accounts from running scams on its platform, the company said on Wednesday.
“We’re aware of this form of manipulation and are proactively implementing a number of signals to prevent these types of accounts from engaging with others in a deceptive manner,” Twitter said in a statement.
The measures come amid a boom in the price of bitcoin, the world's best known cryptocurrency. Bitcoin rose some 1,400 percent last year, but has fallen nearly 30 percent in 2018.
Last month, a Twitter account posing as Elon Musk targeted fans of the Silicon Valley billionaire, claiming to give away cryptocurrency. On Wednesday, the account appeared to be suspended.

Want to make Twitter a better place? Social network wants your suggestions

With social media platforms increasingly coming under fire for fanning hate speeches, trolling and failing to stop spread of fake news, Twitter has said it is committed to making the platform less toxic.

It is seeking help of users in improving what it calls the "conversational health" so that it ceases to become a platform for abuse, spam and manipulation.

"We're committing to helping increase the collective health, openness, and civility of public conversation around the world, and to hold ourselves publicly accountable toward progress," Twitter said in a blog post this week.

"We simply can't and don't want to do this alone," Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted.

Those who are interested in helping it define what health means for Twitter and how it should approach measuring it, they can submit a proposal by filling up a form posted on Twitter's official blog by April 13.

I too have a 'Nuclear button': Trump warns 'food-starved' North Korea's Kim

United States President Donald Trump has hit back at North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, saying that he too has a nuclear button on his desk which was much bigger and powerful than his.

"North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the 'Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times'. Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!" Trump said on twitter on Tuesday.

Trump's tweet came days after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un warned the United States that "the nuclear button is always on the desk of my office".

"The entire mainland of the US is within the range of our nuclear weapons and the nuclear button is always on the desk of my office. They should accurately be aware that this is not a threat but a reality," he said, according to a CNN translation of his speech, during his national New Year's address.

He also declared that North Korea was "a responsible nuclear nation that loves peace" and that "the US cannot wage a war" against it.

Rising tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, which conducted its largest nuclear test in September and fired off a powerful ICBM in late November, have raised concerns worldwide.
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Facebook, Twitter to face sanctions if they don't help in fake news inquiry

Facebook and Twitter have been warned of sanctions if they fail to provide all the necessary information to a British Parliamentary committee investigating Russian interference in the EU referendum through spread of the so called "fake news" on the social networking platforms, a media report said.

The social media giants have time until January 18 to hand over information the committee has requested, The Telegraph reported on Thursday.

If they fail to comply, the committee will consider sanctions that could be imposed, such as encouraging the advertising industry to withdraw business on "ethical" grounds, said Damian Collins, Chair of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport ( DCMS) select committee, which is conducting the "fake news" inquiry.

There are allegations that during the EU referendum campaign, Facebook and Twitter platforms were used by the Russians to spread false information.

Therefore, the DCMS committee has asked the companies for details of the accounts and pages operated by Russians suspected of meddling.

"There has to be a way of scrutinising the procedures that companies like Facebook put in place to help them identify known sources of disinformation, particularly when it's politically motivated and coming from another country," Collins told The Guardian.

"But what there has to be then is some mechanism of saying: if you fail to do that, if you ignore requests to act, if you fail to police the site effectively and deal with highly problematic content, then there has to be some sort of sanction against you," Collins added.
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Twitter expands character limit to 280 for users

Twitter on Wednesday said that users can use 280 characters now — instead of the earlier limit of 140 characters — to express their views on the platform.

For India and the Indian diaspora, the update will apply to the six regional languages supported on the platform — Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi and Tamil, Twitter said.

This is part of Twitter's move to allow most of its users to tweet using 280 characters.

Japanese, Korean, and Chinese will continue to have 140 characters because cramming is not an issue in these languages, Twitter said in a blogpost.

Twitter had 330 million monthly users at the end of September 2017 quarter. It does not divulge country-specific numbers.
In September, Twitter launched a test that expanded the 140-character limit.

"Twitter saw when people needed to use more than 140 characters, they Tweeted more easily and more often," Twitter Product Manager Aliza Rosen said in the blogpost. She added that Twitter is making this change after listening and observing a problem its global community was facing in terms of tweeting.
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Leaks reveal Kremlin cash is behind billionaire's Twitter and Facebook investments

In the fall of 2010, the Russian billionaire investor Yuri Milner took the stage for a Q and A at a technology conference in San Francisco. Mr. Milner, whose holdings have included major stakes in Facebook and Twitter, is known for expounding on everything from the future of social media to the frontiers of space travel. But when someone asked a question that had swirled around his Silicon Valley ascent — Who were his investors? — he did not answer, turning repeatedly to the moderator with a look of incomprehension.

Now, leaked documents examined by The New York Times offer a partial answer: Behind Mr. Milner’s investments in Facebook and Twitter were hundreds of millions of dollars from the Kremlin.

Obscured by a maze of offshore shell companies, the Twitter investment was backed by VTB, a Russian state-controlled bank often used for politically strategic deals.

And a big investor in Mr. Milner’s Facebook deal received financing from Gazprom Investholding, another government-controlled financial institution, according to the documents. They include a cache of records from the Bermuda law firm Appleby that were obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and reviewed by The Times in collaboration with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

Ultimately, Mr. Milner’s companies came to own more than 8 percent of Facebook and 5 percent of Twitter, helping earn him a place on various lists of the world’s most powerful business people. His companies sold those holdings several years ago, but he retains investments in several other large technology companies and continues to make new deals. Among Mr. Milner’s current investments is a real estate venture founded and partly owned by Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and White House adviser.
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UK may ban kids under 13 from social media to curb sexual abuse

Under a new legislation to be debated in the UK's House of Lords later this week, children under the age of 13 will be banned from joining Facebook and Twitter to keep them safe from child abuse on the social media platforms.

According to a report in The Telegraph, the government's Data Protection Bill will legally enshrine the age at which children will be allowed to create accounts on social media platforms.

The proposal, however, might not get support from cross-party peers who are insisting that the measure must be accompanied by new rules forcing companies to adapt their sites for younger users.

The move comes as Home Secretary Amber Rudd is to meet executives from the Internet giants in the US this week.

Writing in a national daily The Sun on Sunday, Rudd said social media giants must do more to stop child sexual exploitation, adding that the companies have a "moral duty" to go "further and faster" in their efforts to tackle the abuse.

"Online technology had made 'vile child sexual abuse content vastly easier to find'. It is an absolute urgency that I call on all Internet companies to go further and go faster in tackling online child sexual abuse.

"We need you all to bring your resources and your technical expertise to help us turn the tide on this horrendous scourge. It is your moral duty," she added.

During her trip to Washington, Rudd will attend a roundtable discussion which will be joined by tech companies, including Google, Facebook and Microsoft.

As per a BBC report, new government figures show there was a 700 per cent increase in the number of indecent images identified on technology company servers and flagged to law enforcement agencies between 2013 and 2017.

Each month there are more than 400 arrests for indecent images of children offences in Britain and some 500 children are being protected from online sexual exploitation, BBC cited the government data as saying.
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Social media firms grilled on Russia ads

Facebook, Google and Twitter - technology powerhouses actively cultivating their influence in Washington - received an unaccustomed grilling and even ridicule in their first appearance before Congress over Russian meddling in last year’s presidential campaign.

Two hearings on Wednesday may bring more of the same for top attorneys from the companies, who were forced to acknowledge to a Senate Judiciary subcommittee Tuesday that they aren’t sure they’ve measured the full extent of foreign manipulation of their social networks and don’t yet have the technology to ensure it won’t happen again.

“We need to understand the behaviour and we need to have the capacity both as a company and as an industry to be able to track it and eradicate it,” said Colin Stretch, Facebook’s general counsel. He said the company will double its safety and security staff to 20,000, including contract workers, by the end of 2018 to help track foreign interference and extremist postings.

The companies stopped short of endorsing proposed legislation that would require them to disclose all purchasers of political advertising, as old-line broadcasters have long been required to do. While some Republicans said such requirements would raise constitutional questions, Democrats on the panel said Congress must act.

The ridicule came from Democratic Senator Al Franken, who expressed amazement that Facebook had failed to detect Russians were behind American political ads on its platform even though some of them were paid for in rubles.

“People are buying ads on your platforms with rubles! They’re political ads,” the senator from Minnesota said. “You can’t put together rubles with a political ad and go like, ‘Hmmm, those two data points spell out something bad?’”
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Facebook, Twitter, Google under scrutiny for 'Russian meddling'

Facebook, Twitter and Google lawyers defended themselves to US lawmakers probing whether Russia used social media to influence the 2016 Presidential election.

The three firms faced hard questions at a Senate panel on Tuesday on crime and terrorism about why they missed political ads bought with Russian money, BBC reported on Wednesday.

Lawmakers are eyeing new regulations for social media firms in the wake of Russia's alleged meddling in 2016. The firms said they would tighten advertising policies and guidelines.

Senator Al Franken, a Democrat from Minnesota, asked Facebook -- which absorbed much of the heat from lawmakers -- why payment in Russian rubles did not tip off the firm to suspicious activity.

"In hindsight, we should have had a broader lens," said Colin Stretch, general counsel for Facebook. "There are signals we missed."

A day earlier, Facebook said as many as 126 million US users may have seen Russia-backed content over the last two years.

Lawyers for the three firms are facing two days of congressional hearings as lawmakers consider legislation that would extend regulations for television, radio and satellite to also cover social media platforms.

The firms said they are increasing efforts to identify bots and spam, as well as make political advertising more transparent.

Facebook, for example, said it expects to have 20,000 people working on "safety and security" by the end of 2018 -- double the current number.
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Russia-backed US election posts reached 126 million US users: Facebook

Internet giants were expected to tell Congress this week that Russian-backed content aimed at manipulating US politics during last year's election was more extensive than first thought.

Facebook, Google and Twitter were slated to share what they have learned so far from digging into possible connections between Russian entities and posts, ads, and even videos shared on YouTube.

Facebook will tell Congress that some 126 million US users, a potentially large portion of the voting public here, may have seen stories, posts or other content from Russian sources, according to tech news site Recode, the Wall Street Journal and other US media.

The reach is far broader than had originally been estimated by the world's leading social network.

Facebook did not respond to AFP requests for comment.

Google found that two accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency spent $4,700 on search and display ads during last year's US election cycle, Google general counsel Kent Walker and director of information security Richard Salgado said in a blog post.

The ads were not targeted based on which states people lived in or their apparent political leanings, the men said.
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The Republican's guide to Presidential etiquette

Republicans used to care a lot about how a president comports himself, and whether he acts at all times with the dignity his station demands.

“Is President Obama Disrespecting the Oval Office?” Fox News asked in 2010, with a link to images of Mr. Obama and his aides tossing a football, or eating apples just inches from the Resolute desk.

“Wear a suit coat and tie,” said Andrew Card Jr., President George W. Bush’s former chief of staff, in reaction to pictures of Mr. Obama in shirtsleeves in 2009.

“I do expect him to send the message that people who are going to be in the Oval Office should treat the office with the respect that it has earned over history,” Mr. Card said.

But hey, that was then! In 2017, there’s a whole new bar for tolerable conduct by the commander in chief. Our original guide cataloged several dozen examples. Almost five months later, it’s clear that an update is necessary. This expanded list is meant to ensure that Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell and other congressional Republicans never forget what they now condone in a president.
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Saudi charges Twitter users with promoting extremism in bid to fight terror

Saudi Arabia's public prosecution has issued an order to summon a group of Twitter users who have been charged with criminal offence for promoting extremism, media reports said on Sunday.

These Twitter users are accused of "influencing the integrity and moderation of the intellectual curriculum of the society with harmful participations that took the seriousness of extremism leading to the misguided campaign of thought."

The names of those summoned and the nature of their posts haven't been revealed.

Saudi Arabia's public prosecution has warned of legal actions against those who will carry contents that are harmful to the society -- regardless of its material, pretexts, and means of publication, Xinhua reported.

The includes media publications, social media, lectures, speeches, books and others.

This act is part of many steps by Saudi Arabia to fight extremism and terrorism that could affect the security of the state.

The country has registered a number of deadly blasts in recent years by terror cells that are backed by the Islamic State (IS) militant group.
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Twitter reports loss and flat user growth in Q2

Twitter Inc (TWTR) today reported a loss of $116.5 million in its second quarter.

On a per-share basis, the San Francisco-based company said it had a loss of 16 cents. Earnings, adjusted for one-time gains and costs, came to 8 cents per share.

The results beat Wall Street expectations. Beginning with the April-June quarter, Twitter changed the way it calculated adjusted earnings.

Under the old method, it would have been 12 cents per share. The average estimate of 12 analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research was for earnings of 5 cents per share.

The short messaging service posted revenue of $573.9 million in the period, also topping Street forecasts. Ten analysts surveyed by Zacks expected $536.8 million.

Twitter said its monthly average user base in the April-June quarter grew 5% from the previous year to $328 million, but it was unchanged from the previous quarter.

Twitter's stock fell more than 9% to $17.75 in pre-market trading today after the numbers came out.

Twitter shares have increased 20% since the beginning of the year. The stock has risen slightly more than 6% in the last 12 months.
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Fire engulfs 27-storey tower in London, 200 firefighters at work

On Wednesday, a massive fire ripped through a 27-storey apartment block in west London in the early hours, police and fire services said.

The fire brigade said 40 fire engines and 200 firefighters had been called to the blaze in Grenfell Tower, which has 120 flats.

"Fire is from 2nd to top floor of 27 storey building," the fire service said on Twitter. Eyewitnesses claimed people are trapped in their homes. An onlooker tweeted a video:

Grenfell Tower in West London, near Lattimer Rd is ablaze. Really hope everyone got out in time. (Shot through binoculars.) pic.twitter.com/2cx2dTfHUd

— Neil Thomas (@noisyneil) June 14, 2017

"Officers, the London Fire Brigade and the London Ambulance Service are currently at the scene. Residents continue to be evacuated from the tower block. A number of people being treated for a range of injuries," the Metropolitan Police said.

"Cordons are in place and it is advised that the estate and surrounding area is avoided," it said.

A dramatic photograph posted by the fire service showed the side of the building engulfed in flames.

Police said in a statement they were called at 1:16 AM (local time) "to reports of a large fire at a block of flats in the Lancaster West Estate".

They said an evacuation of the block was "underway" and at least two people were being treated at the scene for smoke inhalation.

The apartment block was built in 1974.
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Can the world ever really keep terrorists off the internet?

After London’s most recent terror attacks, British Prime Minister Theresa May called on countries to collaborate on internet regulation to prevent terrorism planning online. May criticised online spaces that allow such ideas to breed, and the companies that host them.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has said it is time to say ‘enough is enough’ when it comes to tackling terrorism.
May did not identify any companies by name, but she could have been referring to the likes of Google, Twitter and Facebook. In the past, British lawmakers have said these companies offer terrorism a platform. She also might have been referring to smaller companies, like the developers of apps like Telegram, Signal and Wickr, which are favored by terrorist groups. These apps offer encrypted messaging services that allow users to hide communications.

May is not alone in being concerned about attacks on citizens. After her comments on Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to work with allies and do whatever it takes to stop the spread of terrorism. He did not, however, specifically mention internet regulation.

President Donald Trump addressed the London terror attacks during an event at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, DC.
Internet companies and other commentators, however, have pushed back against the suggestion that more government regulation is needed, saying weakening everyone’s encryption poses different public dangers. Many have also questioned whether some regulation, like banning encryption, is possible at all.

Because the internet is geographically borderless, nearly any message can have a global audience. Questions about online regulation have persisted for years, especially regarding harmful information. As a law professor who studies the impact of the internet on society, I believe the goal of international collaboration is incredibly complicated, given global history.
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