Social-Media
Musk gets $7B backing for Twitter bid from tech heavyweights
Billionaire Elon Musk has strengthened the equity stake of his offer to buy Twitter with commitments of more than $7 billion from a range of investors, including Silicon Valley heavy hitters like Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.
Other investors include Sequoia Capital Fund, which pledged $800 million, and VyCapital, which pledged $700 million, according to a Thursday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. But Ellison, who is also a and Tesla board member, is making the biggest contribution, pegged at $1 billion.
Also read: Musk sells $4B in Tesla shares, presumably for Twitter deal
Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud has pledged 35 million in Twitter shares in support of Musk, according to the filing.
Musk in earlier regulatory filings revealed that he has sold roughly $8.5 billion worth of shares in Tesla to help fund the purchase. Musk later tweeted that he doesn’t plan any further sales of the company’s shares, meaning he would need outside commitments to help fund the $44 billion deal.
Because of the new funding listed in the SEC filing Thursday, Musk will cut the $12.5 billion in margin loans he was leaning on in half, to $6.25 billion. The transaction is also now being funded by $27.25 billion in cash and equities, up from $21 billion.
The Thursday filing also said that Musk is in ongoing talks with other parties including former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who is the second largest individual stakeholder in the company after Musk.
Also read: Elon Musk buys Twitter for $44B and will privatize company
“This was a smart financial and strategic move by Musk that will be well received across the board and also shows the Twitter deal is now on a glide path to get done by the end of this year,” wrote analyst Dan Ives who follows Twitter for Wedbush.
Shares of Twitter Inc. have remained below the per-share offering bid by Musk of $54.20 because there are still doubts on Wall Street about whether the deal will go through.
Shares of the San Francisco social media platform rose 2% before the opening bell, to $50.10.
Twitter abuse victims fear Musk’s plans, but may not quit
Perhaps no group of people is more alarmed about Elon Musk’s apparent plan to make Twitter a free speech free-for-all than those most likely to be targeted for harassment: women, racial minorities and other marginalized groups.
They fear that a more hands-off approach to policing the platform will embolden purveyors of hate speech, bullying and disinformation to ratchet up their bad behavior — a possibility Musk has done little to dispel.
Yet even those who have faced extreme harassment on Twitter say they are unlikely to quit the platform. Despite the negative psychological toll, they value Twitter as a diverse forum to express their views and engage with others.
That could help explain why Musk shows little concern for the underbelly of unfettered free speech, although advertisers - who account for about 90% of Twitter’s revenue - may not feel the same way.
Renee Bracey Sherman, a biracial abortion rights advocate, endures a steady stream of predictable criticism on Twitter and, occasionally, an eruption of vile tweets: messages calling for her death, photos of aborted fetuses and, recently, her likeness photo-shopped as a Nazi.
“It is a montage of hate and gore and violence,” Bracey Sherman said.
But while some famous people threaten to quit Twitter because of Musk, more typical users like Bracey Sherman say it’s not that simple. They cannot cannot leave Twitter and expect their followers to join them.
To mitigate the hate, Bracey Sherman blocks thousands of people and uses filters to hide the most extreme messages. She also reports the most egregious messages to Twitter, although she says the platform rarely takes action.
Twitter did not immediately respond for comment. The company says on its site that it does not permit targeted harassment or intimidation that could make people afraid to speak up. And it says it does not tolerate violent threats.
Also Read: What Musk’s past tweets reveal about Twitter’s next owner
Musk has called himself a “free-speech absolutist.” In tweets to his 85 million followers since Twitter accepted his $44 billion offer on Monday, Musk has made clear that he intends to regulate content with a much lighter touch, and that he isn’t too concerned by the groundswell of criticism that it is likely to fuel harmful content.
“The extreme antibody reaction from those who fear free speech says it all,” Musk tweeted Tuesday.
Playful, aggressive and often juvenile, Musk’s tweets show how he has used social media to craft his public image as a brash billionaire unafraid to offend. They may also reveal clues as to how Musk will govern the platform he hopes to own.
On Tuesday, Musk aimed criticism at one of Twitter’s top lawyers involved in content-moderation decisions. That led some of his followers to direct racist and misogynistic comments at the lawyer, Vijaya Gadde, who was born in India and immigrated to the U.S. as a child.
The uproar engulfing Twitter echoes what other social media companies have experienced in the recent past. When Facebook was slow to act to remove then-President Donald Trump from the platform for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, users called for a boycott, but there was no mass exodus.
Even when fed-up users do leave a social media platform, there’s typically a stream of new users that come in right behind them. It’s not the angriest users who leave, experts say, but those who simply find no use for the platform.
While polls show all types of people are susceptible to online harassment, extensive research has shown that women and people of color are far more likely to be targeted, something Twitter itself acknowledges. That targeting is also true for people with disabilities, people who belong to religious minorities and members of the LGBTQ community.
Michael Kleinman, who has studied online harassment for Amnesty International, said if Twitter allows more hateful and abusive speech, marginalized people who get attacked are likely to express themselves less.
“No one feels safe in a public square where as soon as you speak, a hostile mob screaming obscenities descends upon you. That’s no longer a public square. That’s an arena,” Kleinman said.
Brianna Wu understands that arena as well as anybody.
She has received sexual-assault and death threats on Twitter since 2014, when she created a video game, Revolution 60, that featured women as protagonists. The harassment was part of a larger online campaign targeting female game developers that became known as GamerGate.
Wu has since worked closely with Twitter’s trust and safety team to improve the platform. She said “it terrifies me” to hear Musk talk about rolling back - if not completely wiping away - these efforts.
“We fought very, very hard to improve the platform for women, for LGBTQ people and people of color,” said Wu, who is white and identifies as bisexual.
Also Read: Twitter bans ads that contradict science on climate change
But Wu has no plans to leave Twitter, which she - a former candidate for Congress in Massachusetts - relies on for personal and professional relationships. “I’ve developed life-long friends on Twitter. I think it’s really sad that to get that human connection I’m going to have to deal with harassment again that damages and deadens your humanity.”
Not everyone is dead set on staying. Comic book writer Kelly Sue DeConnick, who has faced harassment as an advocate for gender equity in the entertainment industry, said she’ll wait to see what changes Musk makes before deciding.
“If this just becomes a place where people scream at each other and call each other names and wish one another ill, I’m out,” DeConnick said.
Bridget Todd, a spokeswoman for UltraViolet, an organization that advocates against discrimination in all forms, said that even though Twitter has managed to reduce harassment on its platform in recent years, she doesn’t use it as much as she once did.
Todd said she is deeply worried about Musk guiding the company to eliminate the protections it does have - which she considers inadequate. But she doesn’t intend to leave the platform.
“Our voices are so powerful on platforms like Twitter,” she said. “I don’t necessarily think that this signals the end of that, because I know our voices can really endure.”
Evan Feeney, campaign director for Color of Change, an online racial justice organization that works to improve the lives of Black people in the United States, called Musk’s push to relax content standards on Twitter “an alarming development.” He predicted more coordinated attacks on Black people, particularly Black women.
“It is never good when a single billionaire who purposely conflates freedom to harm with freedom of speech controls one of the (largest) social media platforms in the world,” Feeney said. “We’ve spent years pushing Twitter to implement polices we think have made the platform better. It’s alarming that with a flip of a switch those could be rolled back.”
Harassment on Twitter also spills over into the real world, and it highlights just how much victims sometimes are forced to put up with.
Bracey Sherman says people have placed stickers of racist symbols, including swastikas and monkeys, on her potted plants and the front door of her home. It is why she bristles at those who extol limitless free speech, and who suggest she should just toughen up and ignore it.
“What am I supposed to be able to handle?” she asked. “The fact that you are sending me photos of Nazis and telling me I should be raped over and over and over again?”
What Musk’s past tweets reveal about Twitter’s next owner
Three days before Elon Musk agreed to buy Twitter, the world’s richest man tweeted a photo of Bill Gates and used a crude sexual term to make fun of his belly.
Playful, aggressive and often juvenile, Musk’s past tweets show how he has used social media to craft his public image as a brash billionaire unafraid to offend. They may also reveal clues as to how Musk will govern the platform he hopes to own.
“Look at the feed: It’s all over the place. It’s erratic. At times it’s pretty extreme,” said Jennifer Grygiel, a Syracuse University professor who studies social media and who recently assigned Musk’s tweets as reading material for their students. “It paints him as some sort of rebel leader who will take control of the public square to save it. That is a myth he has constructed.”
Musk joined Twitter in 2010 and now has more than 85 million followers — the seventh most of any account and the highest for any business leader. He had mused about buying the site before he agreed on Monday to pay $44 billion for Twitter, which he said he hopes to turn into a haven where all speech is allowed.
“I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means,” Musk wrote in a tweet.
As the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Musk uses his Twitter account to make business announcements and promote his enterprises. He muses about technology and trade, but has also posted jokes about women’s breasts and once compared Canada’s prime minister to Hitler. He regularly weighs in on global events, as he did in March 2020 when he tweeted that “The coronavirus pandemic is dumb.”
He’s also used the account to punch back at critics, such as when he called a diver working to rescue boys trapped in a cave in Thailand a “pedo,” short for pedophile. The diver had previously criticized Musk’s proposal to use a sub to rescue the boys. Musk, who won a defamation suit filed by the diver, later said he never intended “pedo” to be interpreted as “pedophile.”
Also Read: Twitter bans ads that contradict science on climate change
A few years ago, after software engineer Cher Scarlett criticized Musk’s handling of the cave incident, the tech billionaire fired back and she was soon being harassed by dozens of Musk’s online fans. He later deleted the posts, but not before Scarlett had to lock down her account because she was receiving so many hateful messages.
“It’s ironic to me that somebody who claims they want to buy Twitter to protect free speech has such thin skin,” she said. “He’s a very smart man, and when he replies to people that criticize him, he knows what he’s doing. To me that’s not championing free speech, it’s weaponizing free speech, and I think that’s what he’ll do owning this platform.”
Nineteen-year-old Jack Sweeney got Musk’s attention when he created an automated Twitter account that tracked the movements of Musk’s jet. Musk responded by offering Sweeney $5,000 to pull the account. When Sweeney refused, Musk blocked him on Twitter.
Also Read: Shareholders await Musk's next move in Twitter takeover bid
Sweeney said he’s worried he may get kicked off the site entirely if Musk’s takeover is approved. But he said he likes Musk’s free speech absolutism, and hopes he sees it through.
“He’ll make it more open, and I think that’s a good thing,” Sweeney said.
Musk’s use of Twitter has also led to problems for his own companies. In one August 2018 tweet, for instance, Musk asserted that he had the funding to take Tesla private for $420 a share, although a court has ruled that it wasn’t true. That led to an SEC investigation that Musk is still fighting.
More recently, Musk appeared to have violated SEC rules that required him to disclose that he’d acquired a 5% stake in Twitter; instead he waited until he had more than 9%. Experts say these issues aren’t likely to affect his Twitter acquisition.
Last year another federal agency, the National Labor Relations Board, ordered Musk to delete a tweet that officials said illegally threatened to cut stock options for Tesla employees who joined the United Auto Workers union.
Those tweets helped cement Musk’s reputation as a brash outsider, a workingman’s billionaire, Grygiel said. But that doesn’t mean he is equipped to run a social media platform with more than 200 million users, the professor added.
“Maybe he wants to burn it down,” Grygiel said. “I don’t know. But I do know that it shows that no one person should have this kind of power.”
Viber to roll out two-step verification
Rakuten Viber has announced the rollout of its newest feature, two-step verification.
The extra layer of security will allow its users to authenticate their accounts using a pin code and email.
Messaging on Viber is already end-to-end encrypted, eliminating third parties from accessing its data, and the disappearing message feature allows users further control over who sees their messages.
Also read: Viber cuts business ties with Facebook
Users who choose to enable the two-step verification feature will create a six-digit PIN number and verify their email addresses.
To log in to Viber on a mobile device or desktop, the user will have to verify the account by providing their PIN code. If the code is forgotten, the verified email address will be used to help the user restore access to their account.
Also, having a PIN code will disable the ability to deactivate the account using Viber on a desktop. Anyone trying to deactivate a Viber account via desktop will need to use the PIN code.
read Twitter bans ads that contradict science on climate change
Viber's Two-step verification protects against hackers hijacking users' accounts to send spam or access private information.
Reducing the number of non-verified accounts within the platform will not only reduce the number of spam messages on the platform but will also create a more efficient and stable application for users to communicate with loved ones worldwide.
"We are committed to providing a secure, end-to-end encrypted messaging app, and this new feature takes it one step further," said Amir Ish-Shalom, chief information officer for Rakuten Viber.
Read Making money on TikTok: 10 Best Ways
Twitter bans ads that contradict science on climate change
Twitter says it will no longer allow advertisers on its site who deny the scientific consensus on climate change, echoing a policy already in place at Google.
"Ads shouldn’t detract from important conversations about the climate crisis,” the company said in a statement outlining its new policy Friday.
There was no indication that the change would affect what users post on the social media site, which along with Facebook has been targeted by groups seeking to promote misleading claims about climate change.
Also read: Musk says he has $46.5B in financing ready to buy Twitter
The announcement coinciding with Earth Day came hours before the European Union agreed a deal requiring big tech companies to vet their sites more closely for hate speech, disinformation and other harmful content.
Twitter said it would provide more information in the coming months on how it plans to provide “reliable, authoritative context to the climate conversations” its users engage in, including from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The U.N.-backed science panel's reports on the causes and effects of climate change provide the basis for international negotiations to curb climate change.
Also read: Mamata blocks Bengal Governor on Twitter
The company already has a dedicate climate topic on its site and offered what it described as “pre-bunks” during last year's U.N. climate conference to counter misinformation surrounding the issue.
Shareholders await Musk's next move in Twitter takeover bid
Twitter has dropped a major roadblock in front of Elon Musk’s effort to take over the company, leaving investors to wonder about the mercurial Tesla CEO’s next move.
The social media company has adopted a “poison pill” defense that makes it difficult for Musk or any other investor to buy Twitter without the board of directors’ approval. Musk, who currently owns about 9% of the company, last week disclosed an offer of about $43 billion, or $54.20 per share.
Twitter’s next likely move is to formally reject Musk’s offer, although it could negotiate. Musk has a number of options which also include talks with the board, sweetening his offer, or even triggering the poison pill, which experts say would be disastrous for the company.
In a regulatory filing on Monday, Twitter’s board said it approved the defensive move to protect the company from “coercive or otherwise unfair” takeover tactics.
The board is leaving open the possibility of negotiating with Musk or another suitor. The filing says the shareholder rights agreement should not interfere with any merger or offer approved by the board.
Although he said his offer was “final,” Musk may have to raise his bid to satisfy other shareholders. A Saudi prince who is among Twitter’s major shareholders scoffed at the offer last week in a tweet. Al Waleed bin Talal said he didn’t believe $43 billion is close to Twitter's value given its growth prospects. Twitter shares hit an all-time high of $77.63 in March 2021.
When he made his offer public, Musk provided no details on financing, but such a disclosure could improve his chances. He could raise money by borrowing billions using his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX as collateral, and he could bring in other investors.
The poison pill would give stockholders as of April 25 the right to buy one one-thousandth of a share of preferred stock for each common share they own, at a price of $210. The rights are triggered if any person or group of investors buys 15% or more of the company’s shares without board approval.
The preferred stock would have the same voting rights as a common share, according to the filing, which does not specifically mention Musk.
Also Read: Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter, make it 'maximally trusted'
The poison pill essentially would spell the end of Twitter if Musk or another investor acquires 15% or more of the company, said James Cox, a professor of corporate and securities law at Duke University.
Shareholders who exercise the rights and buy preferred stock at $210 would get $420 in Twitter stock or assets, he said. That would be more than Twitter can afford to pay, and likely would send the company into receivership, Cox said.
“You want to create an event that Musk would never want to trigger because it would be the death of Twitter,” Cox said. He predicts that Musk and the board will negotiate, at least for a while, adding that no investor has ever crossed the line to activate a poison pill.
Also Read: Elon Musk accused of breaking law while buying Twitter stock
If Musk triggered the poison pill, he risks wiping out much of the money he has invested in Twitter because his stake would be diluted, said Columbia University law professor Eric Talley. “You want to deter someone from deliberately triggering the poison pill,” Talley said.
Twitter's board has information that the average shareholder doesn't, such as earnings or market growth projections, and whether there's reason to believe that the share value is artificially depressed, Talley said. The board, he said, could just hold out.
"They’re sitting right now on top of a poison pill that’s a bit of a showstopper. From a corporate law perspective, they’re on pretty solid footing right now if they just keep that in place and say they’re not comfortable bargaining at this stage.”
Musk said in making his bid that Twitter “needs to be transformed as a private company” in order to build trust with users and do better at serving what he calls the “societal imperative” of free speech. He said shareholders, not the board, should decide whether Twitter goes private.
Shares of Twitter closed Monday up 7.5% at $48.45, still $5.75 shy of Musk’s offer. That’s a sign that investors are skeptical of whether Musk can pull off the deal.
Musk began accumulating Twitter shares in late January, ending up with a stake of about 9%. Only Vanguard Group controls more shares. A lawsuit filed last week in New York federal court alleged Musk illegally delayed disclosing his stake so he could buy more shares at lower prices.
Musk took to Twitter to criticize board members in recent days, saying he’d save about $3 million per year by bringing the board salary to zero if his bid succeeds, and noting that board members collectively owning just a tiny financial stake in Twitter shows that their “economic interests are simply not aligned with shareholders.”
Musk, who has more than 82 million followers, is a prolific tweeter who has criticized other celebrity accounts for not tweeting enough, suggesting that as a sign that Twitter is dying.
The takeover episode will put pressure on Twitter executives to show that the company is not underperforming, said Olaf Groth, a business professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Even the entire social media business model of making money through advertising -- which Musk has questioned -- is now “up for discussion,” Groth said.
“He may decide it’s not worth it, and that he sent a political signal to exert pressure,” Groth said. “Now all eyes are on Twitter and the clock is ticking.”
Making money on TikTok: 10 Best Ways
Within a few months of its release in 2017, the TikTok app had become a worldwide viral sensation. TikTok became the third most installed non-gaming app in 2019, topping even Instagram and Facebook, according to Statista. TikTok, with its massive scale, offers enormous potential to produce additional cash for people and companies. This post will go through eight tried-and-true ways of making money on TikTok.
10 Effective Ways to earn money from TikTok
Creator’s Fund
TikTok Creator Fund is TikTok's approach to recognizing and supporting unique creators on their website. It's the app's latest attempt to establish itself as a go-to platform for consumer-generated content.
TikTok Creator Fund is not based on an advertising model. Instead, your money increases in tandem with your channel and content. It is also affected by things such as views from authentic accounts, the geography of your readers, and others.
Read How to Increase YouTube subscribers for free in 2022?
And, since TikTok content engagement is dynamic and varies on a daily basis, your money will fluctuate on a daily basis as well.
Live Stream Donations
Taking contributions from your followers/viewers is one of the various methods to generate money on Tiktok. It operates in the same way as the American video live streaming service Twitch does. The admirers donate money to show their appreciation for these live streams.
As a creator, you may enable Live Gifting while live broadcasting on TikTok, get rewarded in real-time, and payout your winnings using PayPal.
Read How Do Social Media Influencers Make Money?
However, there is a minor twist here. TikTok uses in-app coins instead of currency, which viewers must acquire before giving to their favorite influencers. They may locate the coins by going to Settings > Balance > Recharge.
The next step will be to swap these currencies for virtual prizes. Each prize has a variety of intriguing alternatives. There are a varied number of coins. They also vary in value.
Make and Sell TikTok Accounts
Many companies would want to have a footprint on TikTok but lack the time and resources to set up and maintain an account. Why not put them on a fast track to TikTok success? This may be accomplished by making and selling TikTok accounts.
Read Monetizing Your Blog: How to Make Money from Blogging
People have been creating social media accounts and selling them for a long time in order to gain money. For example, Ramy Halloun, 23, earns roughly $30,000 per year utilizing this TikTok monetization approach.
You need more than an appealing selection of videos on your TikTok account to effectively sell TikTok accounts. You will also need a narrow focus and a loyal fanbase.
Open a Selfy Store
Before you can start establishing influence and generating money on TikTok, you must first have a website where people can purchase your stuff.
Read How to Earn Money from Facebook
While Shopify is used by the majority of TikTokers to sell merchandise, it is far from the only game in town. If you despise hidden fees and having to pay for third-party connections to sell things like merchandise, Shopify is probably not for you.
There is a lot simpler option that may provide you with everything you need to generate money on TikTok. Let's look at that possibility.
TikTok Marketplace
TikTok Creator Marketplace is a platform that connects marketers with creators. This might be useful for creating sponsored films that use a popular user's viewership to promote sales or brand visibility.
Read How to Earn Money from YouTube Channel
Furthermore, it connects smaller firms with bigger producers who may be eager to help them expand via a shoutout or collaboration.
This platform provides cutting-edge data analytics on artists' accounts, which may assist companies in finding the greatest fit for their products. This is the simplest method to capitalize on the power of influencer and affiliate marketing.
Direct Traffic to the Other Channels
TikTok is well-known for its short video duration as well as its highly personalized and intelligent "For You" page.
Read $1 Salary Club: Why do CEOs take a one-dollar annual salary?
This implies that even a single properly crafted and niche-specific video can draw much more traffic than standard social media platforms. You may use it to attract visitors to your other channels to profit from the massive audience it provides.
Virtual Gifts
TikTok's built-in monetization function allows you to live broadcast and accept virtual gifts as another method to generate money. Once you have over 1000 followers, you will be able to use the live streaming option. Your fans may buy coins and use them to give you virtual presents during a live broadcast.
Sponsored Post
Sponsored content is another option to monetize your TikTok account. This is when companies contact you about including their products in your video. In exchange, they pay you a price for your services.
Read Payoneer to Bkash Fund Transfer: A Great Advancement of Freelancing in Bangladesh
To begin, contact local businesses in your neighborhood to see if they want to be featured on TikTok. It would be a good idea to charge a low cost at first, then gradually increase your fee as you achieve fame as a TikTok maker.
Promote Music
TikTok is a terrific resource for young musicians looking to obtain exposure. As a result, producers may make money by using certain music in their videos.
TikTok musician accounts have been on the increase. Nowadays, many new musicians have arisen on the platform, using their notoriety to garner followers/streamers on sites such as Apple Music and Spotify.
Read Negotiating Salary: How to Get the Best Out of a New Job
Become TikTok Consultant
TikTok is one of the most difficult platforms for many businesses to grasp. Because of the channel's one-of-a-kind character, patterns often shift quite fast. Anyone may become a viral phenomenon suddenly. However, it's also easy to lose a significant portion of your fans for a simple mistake or unexpected action. Because of this, TikTok consultants are in great demand.
TikTok consultants are professionals hired by businesses to assist them in expanding their profiles and increasing traffic to their TikTok accounts.
Conclusion
TikTok is a rapidly developing social media network that provides more methods to monetize content than most people understand. The scope of earning from TikTok ranges from the Creator Fund to influencer marketing to the TikTok coin collection.
Read Work from Home, Earn and Be Your Own Boss
At the same time, it is doubtful that you can become a billionaire on the site overnight, and it might take years to earn even a fraction of that amount.
However, when it comes to social media remuneration across many platforms, TikTok undoubtedly provides a diverse set of earning options that make it a dependable source of income for anybody willing to put in the time and effort. We hope our discussion would help you to pick effective ways to make money from TikTok.
'Kill more': Facebook fails to detect hate against Rohingya
A new report has found that Facebook failed to detect blatant hate speech and calls to violence against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority years after such behavior was found to have played a determining role in the genocide against them.
The report shared exclusively with The Associated Press showed the rights group Global Witness submitted eight paid ads for approval to Facebook, each including different versions of hate speech against Rohingya. All eight ads were approved by Facebook to be published.
The group pulled the ads before they were posted or paid for, but the results confirmed that despite its promises to do better, Facebook's leaky controls still fail to detect hate speech and calls for violence on its platform.
The army conducted what it called a clearance campaign in western Myanmar's Rakhine state in 2017 after an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled into neighboring Bangladesh and security forces were accused of mass rapes, killings and torching thousands of homes.
Also Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the U.S. views the violence against Rohingya as genocide. The declaration is intended to both generate international pressure and lay the groundwork for potential legal action, Blinken said.
Also read: Rohingya sue Facebook for $150bn over Myanmar hate speech
On Feb. 1 of last year, Myanmar’s military forcibly took control of the country, jailing democratically elected government officials. Rohingya refugees have condemned the military takeover and said it makes them more afraid to return to Myanmar.
Experts say such ads have continued to appear and that despite its promises to do better and assurances that it has taken its role in the genocide seriously, Facebook still fails even the simplest of tests — ensuring that paid ads that run on its site do not contain hate speech calling for the killing of Rohingya Muslims.
“The current killing of the Kalar is not enough, we need to kill more!” read one proposed paid post from Global Witness, using a slur often used in Myanmar to refer to people of east Indian or Muslim origin.
“They are very dirty. The Bengali/Rohingya women have a very low standard of living and poor hygiene. They are not attractive,” read another.
“These posts are shocking in what they encourage and are a clear sign that Facebook has not changed or done what they told the public what they would do: properly regulate themselves,” said Ronan Lee, a research fellow at the Institute for Media and Creative Industries at Loughborough University, London.
The eight ads from Global Witness all used hate speech language taken directly from the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar in their report to the Human Rights Council. Several examples were from past Facebook posts.
The fact that Facebook approved all eight ads is especially concerning because the company claims to hold advertisements to an “even stricter” standard than regular, unpaid posts, according to their help center page for paid advertisements.
“I accept the point that eight isn’t a very big number. But I think the findings are really stark, that all eight of the ads were accepted for publication,” said Rosie Sharpe, a campaigner at Global Witness. “I think you can conclude from that that the overwhelming majority of hate speech is likely to get through.”
Facebook's parent company Meta Platforms Inc. said it has invested in improving its safety and security controls in Myanmar, including banning military accounts after the Tatmadaw, as the armed forces are locally known, seized power and imprisoned elected leaders in the 2021 coup.
“We’ve built a dedicated team of Burmese speakers, banned the Tatmadaw, disrupted networks manipulating public debate and taken action on harmful misinformation to help keep people safe. We’ve also invested in Burmese-language technology to reduce the prevalence of violating content,” Rafael Frankel, director of public policy for emerging markets at Meta Asia Pacific wrote in an e-mailed statement to AP on March 17. “This work is guided by feedback from experts, civil society organizations and independent reports, including the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar’s findings and the independent Human Rights Impact Assessment we commissioned and released in 2018.”
Facebook has been used to spread hate speech and amplify military propaganda in Myanmar in the past.
Also read: 3 stabbed dead in Gazipur over ‘Facebook comment’: 2 held
Shortly after Myanmar became connected to the internet in 2000, Facebook paired with its telecom providers to allow customers to use the platform without having to pay for the data, which was still expensive at the time. Use of the platform exploded. For many in Myanmar, Facebook became the internet itself.
Local internet policy advocates repeatedly told Facebook hate speech was spreading across the platform, often targeting the Muslim minority Rohingya in the majority Buddhist nation.
For years Facebook failed to invest in content moderators who spoke local languages or fact checkers with an understanding of the political situation in Myanmar or to close specific accounts or delete pages being used to propagate hatred of the Rohingya, said Tun Khin, president of Burmese Rohingya Organization UK, a London-based Rohingya advocacy organization.
In March 2018, less than six months after hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled violence in western Myanmar, Marzuki Darusman, chairman of the U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, told reporters social media had “substantively contributed to the level of acrimony and dissension and conflict, if you will, within the public."
“Hate speech is certainly of course a part of that. As far as the Myanmar situation is concerned, social media is Facebook, and Facebook is social media,” Darusman said.
Asked about Myanmar a month later at a U.S. Senate hearing, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook planned to hire “dozens” of Burmese speakers to moderate content and would work with civil society groups to identify hate figures and develop new technologies to combat hate speech.
“Hate speech is very language specific. It’s hard to do it without people who speak the local language and we need to ramp up our effort there dramatically,” Zuckerberg said.
Yet in internal files leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen last year, AP found that breaches persisted. The company stepped up efforts to combat hate speech but never fully developed the tools and strategies required to do so.
Rohingya refugees have sued Facebook for more than $150 billion, accusing it of failing to stop hate speech that incited violence against the Muslim ethnic group by military rulers and their supporters in Myanmar. Rohingya youth groups based in the Bangladesh refugee camps have filed a separate complaint in Ireland with the 38-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development calling for Facebook to provide some remediation programs in the camps.
The company now called Meta has refused to say how many of its content moderators read Burmese and can thus detect hate speech in Myanmar.
“Rohingya genocide survivors continue to live in camps today and Facebook continue to fail them,” said Tun Khin. “Facebook needs to do more.”
Netflix, TikTok block services in Russia to avoid crackdown
Netflix and TikTok suspended most of their services in Russia on Sunday as the government cracks down on what people and media outlets can say about Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Pulling the plug on online entertainment — and information — is likely to further isolate the country and its people after a growing number of multinational businesses have cut off Russia from vital financial services, technology and a variety of consumer products in response to Western economic sanctions and global outrage over the invasion of Ukraine.
U.S. credit card companies Visa, Mastercard and American Express all said over the weekend they would cut service in Russia. South Korea’s Samsung Electronics, a leading supplier of both smartphones and computer chips, said it would halt product shipments to the country, joining other big tech companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Intel and Dell.
And two of the so-called Big Four accounting firms said Sunday they were cutting ties to the country. KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers both they would end their relationships with their Russia-based member firms, each of which employs thousands of people.
Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, called on U.S. technology companies to do more Sunday to hit back against Russia. He tweeted open letters asking Apple and Google to shut down their app stores in Russia and for Amazon and Microsoft to suspend their cloud computing services.
Providers of internet-based services and apps have been mostly reluctant to take actions that could deprive Russian citizens of social media services and other sources of information.
That changed Friday when Russian President Vladimir Putin intensified a crackdown on media outlets and individuals who fail to hew to the Kremlin line on the war, blocking Facebook and Twitter and signing into law a bill that criminalizes the intentional spreading of what Moscow deems to be “fake” reports.
Netflix didn’t specify a reason for suspending services Sunday except to say it reflected “circumstances on the ground.” The company had previously said it would refuse to air Russian state TV channels.
How to Get Free Instagram Followers for Business in 2022
Instagram is one of the fastest-growing social media channels, benefiting companies as well as celebrities. Instagram users spend hours each day engaging in recreational activities, and there are surely many individuals who desire to be influencers. It is an incredible digital platform that allows users to cash out their accounts if they have a huge following and fan interaction. Instagram has grown from a basic photo-sharing application to a giant marketing and networking platform for companies and people. Stay with us to get tips for increasing Insta followers at free of cost.
Ways to Get More Followers on Instagram at Free of Cost
Having said that, boosting your Instagram following may help you improve traffic to your website, increase revenue, and even transform anybody into a trendsetting influencer. Here are some tried-and-true methods for increasing your Instagram followers — without using spam accounts or bots.
Tapping into Instagram Reels
If you are not currently posting Instagram Reels, you are potentially losing out on a significant chance to expand your follower base.
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Instagram Reels, the app's short-form, looping video feature, is still one of the most successful methods to reach new audiences. Unlike most of the Instagram experience, viewers in the Reels feed are presented high-quality material from both followers and non-followers.
This implies that the Reels have the potential to go far beyond a business’s follower list.
Optimizing Post Captions for Inbound and Outbound Search
Optimizing Instagram photos for search is a significant Instagram growth tip. Instagram recently updated to enable English-speaking users in six countries to search the platform using keywords.
Read How To Be A Popular Instagram Influencer
According to an Instagram spokesman, the team examines a variety of criteria when surfacing relevant results, including the "kind of material, captions, and when it was uploaded."
Additionally, it employs machine learning to "identify the highest-quality material that is personally relevant to you." For the time being, only grid postings will be shown.
Curate Attractive Profile for Robust First Impression
Having an Instagram feed that is well-planned and clearly highlights your specialization is critical for converting profile visits to followers. When someone visits a business profile, the business wants them to immediately grasp its purpose.
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Utilize a visual planner tool to organize your Instagram grid before posting to ensure a consistent style that suits your business.
Collaborating with Influencers and Brands
Collaborating with like-minded influencers and companies is a significant win-win situation. You can make profit from brand association and get access to a new audience.
Collaborations do not have to be prohibitively expensive. Some of the most successful collaborations are straightforward and mutually beneficial.
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Similarly, you do not need to collaborate with mega-influencers to have an effect. Nano and micro-influencers often have greater engagement rates and a cheaper rate card for sponsored articles than macro-influencers.
However, you will need to work with more Nano or Micro-influencers to achieve the same audience size as a Macro influencer - the optimal technique will depend on your available bandwidth and money.
Making Shoppable Instagram Feeds
Nowadays, purchasing things from Instagram pages is a popular method of shopping online. Additionally, as previously said, many individuals utilize Instagram to locate the right buy.
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It makes sense for businesses to establish shoppable Instagram feeds. Shoppable feeds send visitors to your product page, allowing them to explore, click, and purchase instantaneously.
As a consequence of their direct purchasing experience, these consumers are likely to follow you for more product suggestions and to promote your brand to others.
Creating Highly-shareable Content
In terms of reaching new audiences organically, providing shareable content is an excellent place to start. Inspirational quotations, instructional carousel articles, and trending memes are all effective forms of content. Even a single viral post may reach thousands of people.
Read How to Earn Money from Instagram
Memes, in particular, are very effective at establishing viral reach – particularly when they capitalize on a current trend in popular culture. This type contents are often amusing or creative, and they frequently use both text and pictures. To develop an incredibly effective meme, strike a balance among several factors, such as, the graphics tool, the mood of target audience, and the speciality of your business.
Creating a Strong Value Proposition
Whether it is fashion suggestions, inspiring quotations, or lifestyle material, having a clear value proposition is critical for turning visitors to your profile into followers.
Read How Do Social Media Influencers Make Money?
This does not signify that all of your material must be identical. Expert content developers advocate concentrating on 3-5 content pillars linked to the area. Thus, you may diversify a content strategy without diminishing your primary startegies.
Creating Instagram Challenges
Instagram challenges have long been popular, and they are now making an appearance on Instagram Reels more regularly.
Successfully launching an Instagram challenge may propel your account into the zeitgeist, exposing it to hundreds, if not millions, of new followers.
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To get huge responses and the greatest results, make the participation process as simple as possible. For instance, you can establish a branded hashtag to connect the challenge to your business, and consider what activities participants would love.
Using Industry Hashtags
Instagram hashtags are wonderful tools for directing users to material that piques their interest. And if prospective followers discover you via a highly targeted hashtag, they are likely to follow you after seeing your most popular posts.
With this in mind, you should include hashtags related to your sector in each Instagram post. For example, a photographic brand may use.
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The most effective method of discovering relevant hashtags is to open the Instagram app and touch the explore button. From there, you may see popular hashtags that are being used by a large number of individuals.
Analyzing Results
One strategy for determining how to increase your Instagram followers is to examine what the present fans react to. Several Instagram metrics may be tracked directly inside the app or through third-party analytics solutions.
Bottom Line
If you want to expand your business steadily on Instagram, you must consistently provide high-quality material to attract the target audience. While fragmented social media works for personal accounts, corporations need a more deliberate approach. All of the strategies discussed of enhancing the number of free instagram followers will assist a company in increasing its followers as well as potential clintes. However, these ways are not one-time checkboxes. You need to keep an eye on the social media content strategies to stay updated.
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