Technology

New Delhi, Sep 3 (IANS) Google has removed a record 137,657 pieces of bad content based on user complaints in July this year in compliance with the new India IT Rules, 2021.

Most of the content it removed were related to copyright violations (135,341), while other categories included trademark, court order, graphic sexual content, circumvention, and others.

The tech giant received 37,173 complaints from individual users via designated mechanisms in the country in the same period, related to third-party content that is believed to violate local laws or personal rights on various Google platforms.

In June, Google had removed 1,11,493 pieces of bad content based on user complaints.

"The complaints consist of various categories. Some requests may allege infringement of intellectual property rights, while others claim violation of local laws prohibiting types of content on grounds such as defamation," Google said in a statement.

"In addition to reports from our users, we invest heavily in fighting harmful content online and use technology to detect and remove it from our platforms," it said in its monthly compliance report.

The company said that as part of its automated detection processes, it removed 551,800 accounts in the country.

"We invest heavily in fighting harmful content online and use technology to detect and remove it from our platforms. This includes using automated detection processes for some of our products to prevent the dissemination of harmful content such as child sexual abuse material and violent extremist content," said Google.

In accordance with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (IT Rules), Google, along with other social media platforms, is mandated to publish monthly transparency reports with details of complaints received from users in India and the actions taken, as well as removal actions taken as a result of automated detection.

Under the new IT rules 2021, big digital and social media platforms -- with more than 5 million users -- have to publish monthly compliance reports.

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New Delhi, Sep 3 (IANS) Twitter's ambitious plan to tackle extremism on its platform went for a toss when Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced to buy it, and in months after that, the health research team has disappeared, from 15 employees to just two, the media reported.

Twitter had partnered with Moonshot, a company that analyses violent extremists, to begin a project called 'Redirect' to curb the spread of harmful content on its platform.

According to The Verge, "the goal was to move the company from simply reacting to bad accounts and posts to proactively guiding users toward better behaviour".

However, before the project could see the light of the day, Musk in April announced to buy the company for $44 billion, and all hell broke loose.

"Shortly afterward, employees who'd been leading the Moonshot partnership left. And in the months since Musk signed the deal, the health research team has all but evaporated, going from 15 staffers to just two," the report said late on Friday.

The project sought to understand and address user behaviours.

"Instead of focusing on designating bad accounts or content, we seek to understand how users find harmful group content in accounts and then to redirect those efforts," read an internal document.

Multiple former researchers told The Verge that the turmoil associated with Musk's bid to purchase the company "was a breaking point and led them to decide to pursue other work".

Some employees who remained were allegedly told to "deprioritise Redirect in favour of projects related to bots and spam", as Musk wanted to know the exact number of spam accounts on the platform.

Twitter was yet to react to the report.

Another The Verge report claimed this week that Twitter planned to monetise adult content on its platform this year, by allowing adult creators to sell subscriptions on the micro-blogging platform, and become profitable in a jiffy.

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New Delhi, Sep 3 (IANS) Google has finally allowed conservative social media app Parler to be back on its Play Store, after it removed the app in January 2021 for violating its policies following the US Capitol riots.

In April, Apple approved Parler's return to the App Store, following improvements the company made to better detect and moderate hate speech.

"Major news: We're back on the Google Play Store. Happy downloading, Android users," Parler app tweeted on Saturday.

Parler Chief Technology Officer Sam Lipoff said that while away from Google Play, "we have worked diligently to build a more feature-rich and dynamic user experience".

"Now is a perfect time to join Parler and rediscover the non-partisan platform where we enable people to speak freely," Lipoff posted.

Parler, an alternative to Facebook and Twitter that bills itself as a haven for free speech, was removed from major tech platforms in early January following the US Capitol riots of January 6.

Parler was kicked off of Apple and Google's app stores, as well as Amazon Web Services, which had been hosting the company's product.

Former US President Donald Trump's social media platform called Truth Social is also facing similar issues with bot Apple and Google, and the company is now working "in good faith with Google" to get it back on Play Store.

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San Francisco, Sep 2 (IANS) Samsun on Friday said it suffered a data breach that may have exposed some customers' personal information in the US.

The South Korean giant said that it has taken actions to secure the affected systems, and have engaged a leading outside cybersecurity firm and are coordinating with law enforcement.

Samsung said the data breach did not impact social security numbers or credit and debit card numbers, but in some cases, "may have affected information such as name, contact and demographic information, date of birth, and product registration information".

"We recently discovered a cybersecurity incident that affected some customer information. In late July 2022, an unauthorised third party acquired information from some of Samsung's US systems," the company said in a statement.

"On or around August 4, 2022, we determined through our ongoing investigation that personal information of certain customers was affected," it added.

According to the company, the information affected for each relevant customer may vary, and it was notifying customers to make them aware of this matter.

"By working with industry-leading experts, we will further enhance the security of our systems – and our customers' personal information – and work to maintain the trust our customers have put into the Samsung brand for more than 40 years," said the tech giant.

It's not immediately clear how many customers are affected.

This is the second time Samsung has confirmed a data breach this year.

Data extortion entity Lapsus$ had claimed that it hacked the system of the South Korean tech giant and leaked up to 190 gigabytes of its data and source code online.

The hackers also claimed they uploaded the leaked data for download via torrent.

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New Delhi, Sep 2 (IANS) The USB is taking a new avatar and soon, the USB 4 version 2.0 will be capable of delivering speeds up to 80 Gbps over the Type C cable -- double the capacity of the original USB 4, even Thunderbolt 4.

The USB Promoter Group has announced the pending release of the USB4 Version 2.0 specification, a major update to enable up to 80 Gbps of data performance over the USB Type-C cable and connector.

The USB Type-C and USB Power Delivery (USB PD) specifications will also be updated to enable this higher level of data performance.

"Once again following USB tradition, this updated USB4 specification doubles data performance to deliver higher levels of functionality to the USB Type-C ecosystem," said Brad Saunders, Chairman, USB Promoter Group.

"Solutions seeing the most benefit from this speed enhancement include higher-performance displays, storage, and USB-based hubs and docks," he said in a statement.

All of these specification updates are expected to be published in advance of this year's series of USB DevDays developer events planned for November.

Protocol updates are also being made to enable higher performance USB 3.2, DisplayPort and PCI Express (PCIe) data tunneling to best use the higher available bandwidth.

Key characteristics of the updated USB4 solution include up to 80Gbps operation, based on a new physical layer architecture, using existing 40 Gbps USB Type-C passive cables and newly-defined 80 Gbps USB Type-C active cables.

It will offer updates to data and display protocols to better use the increase in available bandwidth, and backward compatibility with USB4 Version 1.0, USB 3.2, USB 2.0 and Thunderbolt 3.

"This update is specifically targeted to developers at this time", said the group which has Apple, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, Renesas Electronics Corporation, STMicroelectronics and Texas Instruments as members.

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New Delhi, Sep 2 (IANS) Twitter, which is locked in a legal battle with the Indian government over content blocking orders, banned 45,191 accounts of the Indian users in the month of July over violation of its guidelines, the microblogging platform said in its monthly compliance report on Friday.

Twitter suspended 42,825 accounts for promoting child sexual exploitation, non-consensual nudity, and similar content in India, while blocking another 2,366 accounts for promoting terrorism, it said in its monthly compliance report as per the new IT Rules, 2021.

The microblogging platform received 874 grievances in the country through its local grievance mechanism between June 26-July 25, and took action on 70 complaints.

In June, Twitter had banned more than 43,140 accounts of the Indian users.

"While we welcome everyone to express themselves on our platform, we do not tolerate behaviour that harasses, threatens, dehumanises, or uses fear to silence the voices of others," Twitter said in the report.

Under the new IT Rules 2021, big digital and social media platforms, with more than 5 million users, have to publish monthly compliance reports.

Twitter receives complaints in its Grievance Officer-India channel that relate to account verification, account access, or seeking assistance or information regarding an account or Twitter's enforcement actions.

In addition, Twitter processed 124 grievances which were appealing account suspensions.

"These were all resolved and the appropriate responses were sent. We overturned none of these account suspensions after reviewing the specifics of the situation," said the company.

The compliance report came as whistleblower Peiter Zatko, former head of security at Twitter, alleged that the Indian government forced the platform to "hire a government agent on its payroll" and "grant access to sensitive user data", a claim which has been dismissed by Twitter.

In May, Twitter moved the Karnataka High Court against the Indian government's order to take down some content on its platform.

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New York, Sep 2 (IANS) YouTube is showing more election-fraud videos to users already skeptical about the legitimacy of the 2020 US presidential election, a study has revealed, showing how its algorithms perpetuate existing misperceptions.

The study, published in the Journal of Online Trust and Safety, found that those most skeptical of the election's legitimacy were shown three times as many election-fraud-related videos as were the least skeptical participants -- roughly eight additional recommendations out of approximately 400 videos suggested to each study participant.

The findings expose the consequences of a recommendation system that provides users with the content they want.

"For those most concerned about possible election fraud, showing them related content provided a mechanism by which misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracies can find their way to those most likely to believe them," said the authors of the study.

Importantly, these patterns reflect the independent influence of the algorithm on what real users are shown while using the platform.

"Our findings uncover the detrimental consequences of recommendation algorithms and cast doubt on the view that online information environments are solely determined by user choice," said James Bisbee, who led the study at New York University's Center for Social Media and Politics (CSMaP).

Nearly two years after the 2020 presidential election, large numbers of Americans, particularly Republicans, don't believe in the legitimacy of the outcome.

"Roughly 70 per cent of Republicans don't see Biden as the legitimate winner," despite "multiple recounts and audits that confirmed Joe Biden's win," the Poynter Institute said earlier this year.

While it's well-known that social media platforms, such as YouTube, direct content to users based on their search preferences, the consequences of this dynamic may not be fully realised.

"Many believe that automated recommendation algorithms have little influence on online aecho chambers' in which users only see content that reaffirms their preexisting views," said Bisbee, now an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University.

"This highlights the need for further investigation into how opaque recommendation algorithms operate on an issue-by-issue basis," said Bisbee.

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San Francisco, Sep 2 (IANS) Tech giant Apple is likely planning to declare some iPod models, including the last iPod nano, a few models of the final iPod shuffle, and fifth-generation iPod touch models, obsolete later this month.

In a memo sent to authorised service providers, the tech giant said that the late 2012 model of the iPod shuffle, alongside the seventh-generation iPod nano and the fifth-generation model iPod touch, will be marked as obsolete on September 30, reports MacRumors.

Apple has already designated the 16GB model of the fifth-generation iPod touch as obsolete, and it plans to add the 32GB and 64GB models to the list later this month.

The tech giant discontinued the iPod nano and iPod shuffle entirely in 2017, while the iPod touch remained available until earlier this year.

When the iPod touch was discontinued, Apple's marketing chief Greg Joswiak said the "spirit of iPod lives on" across other Apple products, including the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV, and HomePod mini.

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New Delhi, Sep 1 (IANS) Bharti Airtel on Thursday launched a new Cloud portfolio to offer specialised products for multiple business segments, as the company plnas to roll out 5G services in the country.

The new cloud offerings will fall under Edge Cloud Portfolio and will include Edge content delivery network (CDN).

Airtel Cloud's Edge CDN accelerates web and video content delivery by using its edge network to bring content as close to users as possible.

This reduces latency, costs and load on servers making it easier for enterprises to focus on app performance for OTT, ed-tech, gaming and healthcare sectors.

"Airtel has three key strengths to offer a differentiated set of cloud offerings – we have 12 large data centres and 120+ edge locations. We also have a network with comprehensive coverage across the country and to most locations across the globe," said Ajay Chitkara, Director and CEO, Airtel Business.

Airtel is currently working with two of the largest OTT companies in India and others on this platform.

"With 5G around the corner, businesses will leverage the low latency, high bandwidth and high device density of the 5G spectrum to solve critical problems using edge computing," said Chitkara.

Airtel said it will utilise Edge Cloud applicationd eveloper Qwilt's 'Open Edge Cloud' solution for deployment.

"Our edge architecture provides a new economic model for streaming delivery, in which Airtel Cloud's Edge CDN plays a central role in the end-to-end value chain," said Alon Maor, CEO, Qwilt.

Airtel recently became the first company to test a captive private network at the Bosch facility in Bengaluru. Airtel is also rolling out its Edge compute service to customers.

The company said there will be many targeted cloud solutions coming in for specific industry requrements soon.

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San Francisco, Sep 1 (IANS) Tech giant Apple may use "hybrid" OLED technology, which incorporates rigid and flexible OLED panel materials, as part of its rumoured plans to switch to OLED technology for upcoming iPad models.

The tech giant is hesitant to rely solely on the flexible OLED technology it employs in its iPhone models since the panels tend to "crumple", and the effect is more evident as displays get bigger, MacRumors reported citing The Elec.

"When it became known that Apple plans to apply hybrid OLED to the first OLED iPad, the industry has assumed that the cause was cost reduction," the report said.

However, it is understood that there is a reason why Apple preferred hybrid OLED other than this cost reduction.

An official from the parts industry said: "Apple hated the fact that a part of the product screen could look wrinkled to the user's eyes when using a flexible OLED.

"iPhone OLED has a 5-7 inch screen, so these characteristics are not well revealed, but it is relatively noticeable in large-screen (10-20 inch) IT products."

While the hybrid OLED technology has yet to be perfected and will take at least a year to become commercially viable before it could be incorporated into an OLED iPad by around 2024, the report said, adding that both Samsung and LG are pursuing ultra-thin glass substrates measuring just 0.2 mm thick to be used with the technology, down from the current standard of around 0.5 mm.

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