Internet

Social media sites could face fines of almost $60 million if they don't remove hate speech and other illegal posts within 24 hours of receiving a report. The new German law has prompted Facebook to recruit hundreds of staff. It's the result of the ... Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz law, which is known as NetzDG for short, and literally translates as Network Enforcement Act. (Source: BBC.com ) Libel And Hate Speech Both Covered The law doesn't change what content is allowed and not allowed. Instead, it says that sites must remove any content that is "obviously illegal." A prime example is ... (view more)

The Library of Congress has abandoned a project to archive every post made on Twitter. It blames the sheer number of "tweets" now being made, along with an increasing reliance on images and videos. The library is the world's largest and collects all ... manner of documents from newspapers to government forms. As a general rule it, doesn't aim to collect all possible data from a source but made an exception for Twitter in 2010. At that point it reached an agreement with Twitter to get a copy of its complete archive of posts, then dating back to 2006. The idea was to "document the emergence of ... (view more)

Infopackets Reader Corey S. writes: " Dear Dennis, With the FCC repealing its plans to protect net neutrality in which all Internet traffic is created equal, will Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) make any difference what Internet Service Providers ... (ISPs) will be able to monitor and control when it comes to Internet traffic? For example, if there is no net neutrality and suddenly my Internet Service Provider wants to charge me extra to visit Netflix to view movies online, will a VPN help? Will a VPN help in terms of Blocking and Filtering, Internet Fast Lanes, Throttling, Zero Rated Services? ... (view more)

Facebook says it's cracking down on posts that unreasonably encourage users to share content or tag friends. It's also offering a way to temporarily stop seeing posts from a particular user. The move is designed to deal with people and organizations ... who take unfair advantage of the way Facebook decides what most users see on the site (with the default settings). The order posts appear for a particular user is heavily influenced by how many other people the user knows have "liked", shared or commented on. Meanwhile tagging somebody in a post (which is done by writing their name in a reply to a ... (view more)

A former Facebook executive says the site is responsible for "ripping apart the social fabric of how society works." Chamath Palihapitiya says the problem isn't restricted to the US. Speaking at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Palihapitiya ... said he felt "tremendous guilt" about his role as Facebook's vice president of user growth. Talking about the way Facebook tried to get users to stick around on the site, he echoed the comments of former colleagues in likening it to psychological manipulation. Social Media Works Like Drug He referred to "dopamine-driven feedback loops", referring ... (view more)

Users of some Amazon gadgets will have to look elsewhere for YouTube videos, after Google announced it will block the site from the devices. It's a tit-for-tat response to Amazon refusing to stock some Google hardware products. YouTube will be ... blocked from January 1st, 2018 on Amazon Fire TV devices, which include both table-top boxes and HDMI sticks. There's also an immediate block on YouTube on the Echo Show, which is a variant of the 'smart speaker' range that includes a screen. Google had already blocked YouTube on the Echo Show once but Amazon found a workaround. That workaround has now ... (view more)

Facebook has created a special version of its Messenger tool for users aged under 13. Those are kids that are too young to use the main Facebook site (officially, at least). The core functions of Messenger Kids will be the same as the main Messenger ... app: users can exchange written messages in real time, or carry out video calls. There'll also be a range of "comedic" filters and effects to overlay on the video. One difference is that there will be no form of advertising whatsoever. There will also be some automated moderation tools that block users from sharing abusive content. Parents Must ... (view more)

Facebook is to use artificial intelligence to spot posts made by people who might be suicidal. However, it will continue using human moderators to decide how to act over such posts. The site already has a tool that moderators can activate to display ... special messages to people whose wellbeing may be in question. These messages include details of local professional support services and help lines. The messages also encourage the user to talk over their problems with a friend and even include suggested wordings for how to ask for help. Facebook says this tool was developed with the help of ... (view more)

Mozilla has launched a new version of the Firefox browser aimed at winning over Google Chrome users. It says the new version is twice as fast as earlier versions of Firefox that were available this year. The key is the "web rendering engine," which ... is the part of the browser that interprets the code on a website page and visually combines it on the user's computer. Mozilla has replaced its old engine with a new one dubbed Firefox Quantum. It's also put together videos showing that Firefox is now quicker than Chrome to fully load most (but not all) of the more popular websites. ... (view more)

Facebook has come up with a controversial way to help people whose compromising pictures are shared online without their permission. The term is dubbed "revenge porn" - and to solve the problem, Facebook wants users to upload naked pictures of ... themselves to Facebook servers. Yes, you read that correctly. The test program is known as the "Non-Consensual Intimate Image Pilot." It's designed to counter cases where somebody - often a former partner - tries to humiliate the victim by sharing images of them in revealing situations on the victim Facebook wall. Such behavior can be ... (view more)