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Meta India Head Ajit Mohan Resigns, Joins Rival Snap as APAC President

Ajit Mohan, who served as head of Meta in India, has left the firm to join rival social media company Snap. Mohan has taken up the role of President of APAC business at Snap, the company revealed on Thursday. Mohan joined Facebook in January 2019 as Vice President and Managing Director of its India business. Since then, Facebook underwent several changes including shifting under parent company Meta. During his tenure, Mohan played a crucial role in Meta’s family of apps including in Instagram and WhatsApp, adding over 200 million users in India.

Meta confirmed the exit of its India head on Thursday. “Ajit has decided to step down from his role at Meta to pursue another opportunity outside of the company,” Nicola Mendelsohn, Vice President of Global Business Group at Meta, said in a statement.

Prior to joining Facebook, Mohan assumed the position of Senior Vice President at Star TV, where he helped launch Hotstar, its own digital streaming service. Mohan later went on to head Hotstar as CEO for four years before eventually joining Facebook in 2019. At Star, he played a key role in localising the content strategy of Hotstar, which included banking on local movies, original shows, and acquiring sports streaming rights to major sporting events in the country.

“Over the last four years, he has played an important role in shaping and scaling our India operations so they can serve many millions of Indian businesses, partners and people. We remain deeply committed to India and have a strong leadership team in place to carry on all our work and partnerships. We are grateful for Ajit’s leadership and contribution and wish him the very best for the future,” added Mendelsohn in her statement.

Snap confirmed in a statement to Gadgets 360 that Mohan will join the company from Meta, as President of Snap’s APAC business. 

Mohan has joined Snap’s executive team and will lead Snap’s businesses in India, Australia and New Zealand, China, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Korea.

“We believe that Ajit’s leadership will enable us to accelerate our growth across APAC, and we could not be more thrilled to have Ajit joining the Snap team,” Evan Spiegel, Snap CEO said in a prepared statement. 

Mohan is set to join Snap at a tremulous time for the company shadowed by its shares plunging about 25 percent last month after it forecast zero revenue for the current quarter. Mohan would look to overturn the fortunes of Snap, which cited a weakening economy and fierce competition as a reason for its slump in growth.

Snapchat reached 100 million monthly active users (MAUs) in India 2021, and the company has previously partnered platforms like Flipkart and Zomato in the country. The firm says it is looking to target users in the APAC region that comprise approximately 75 percent of smartphone users above the age of 13, who have not yet used the messaging platform.

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Facebook Parent Meta Ordered to Pay $10.5 Million Legal Fees to Washington State

Facebook parent company Meta has been ordered to pay $10.5 million (nearly Rs. 86 crore) in legal fees to Washington state atop a nearly $25 million (nearly Rs. 200 crore) fine for repeated and intentional violations of campaign finance disclosure laws.

King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North issued the legal-fee order Friday, two days after he hit the social media giant with what is believed to be the largest campaign finance fine in the US history, The Seattle Times reported.

North ordered the company to pay by wire transfer, check or money order within 30 days. The money is to go to the state Public Disclosure Commission, which enforces campaign finance laws.

North imposed the maximum fine allowed for more than 800 violations of Washington’s Fair Campaign Practices Act, passed by voters in 1972 and later strengthened by the Legislature. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson argued that the maximum was appropriate considering his office previously sued Facebook in 2018 for violating the same law.

Meta, based in Menlo Park, California, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment, the newspaper reported.

The company previously said it was assessing its options with respect to the ruling.

Washington’s transparency law requires ad sellers such as Meta to keep and make public the names and addresses of those who buy political ads, the target of such ads, how the ads were paid for and the total number of views of each ad. Ad sellers must provide the information to anyone who requests it. Television stations and newspapers have complied with the law for decades.

But Meta has repeatedly objected to the requirements, arguing unsuccessfully in court that the law is unconstitutional because it “unduly burdens political speech” and is “virtually impossible to fully comply with.” While Facebook does keep an archive of political ads that run on the platform, the archive does not disclose all the information required under Washington’s law.

In 2018, following Ferguson’s first lawsuit, Facebook agreed to pay $238,000 (nearly Rs. 2 crore) and committed to transparency in campaign finance and political advertising. It subsequently said it would stop selling political ads in the state rather than comply with the requirements.

Nevertheless, the company continued selling political ads, and Ferguson sued again in 2020.

Meta, one of the world’s wealthiest companies, reported quarterly earnings Wednesday of $4.4 billion (nearly Rs. 36,200 crore), or $1.64 (nearly Rs. 130) per share, on revenue of nearly $28 billion (nearly Rs. 2,30,400 crore), in the three month period that ended September 30.

 

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Mark Zuckerberg to Testify in FTC Case Against Facebook’s Virtual Reality Deal

Meta Platforms Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg will testify in a case by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that argues the company’s proposed deal to buy virtual reality (VR) content maker Within Unlimited should be blocked.

In a court document filed with the US District Court Northern District Of California on Friday, the FTC listed 18 witnesses it plans to question, including Zuckerberg, Within CEO Chris Milk and Meta Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth.

They were also on a list of witnesses submitted on Friday by defendants Meta and Within.

In addition to defending the Within acquisition, Zuckerberg is expected to be questioned about the Facebook-parent’s strategy for its VR business, as well as the company’s plans to support third-party developers, according to the court document.

The FTC had filed a lawsuit in July saying that Meta’s acquisition of Within would “tend to create a monopoly” in the market for VR-dedicated fitness apps.

The regulator argues that the proposed deal would “substantially lessen competition or tend to create a monopoly” in that market.

Meta, in court documents, has argued that “the FTC’s conclusory, speculative, and contradictory allegations do not plausibly plead any facts to establish that any supposed market for VR Deliberate Fitness apps is ‘oligopolistic’ as to either behavior or structure.”

Facebook agreed to buy Within in October 2021 for an undisclosed sum.

The FTC’s lawsuit, against the company and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, broadly targets Meta’s acquisitions of VR companies in recent years, accusing the company of embarking on a “campaign to conquer VR” dating back to 2014 when it acquired the Oculus VR headset manufacturer.

In a press release then, FTC Bureau of Competition Deputy Director John Newman said, “Instead of competing on the merits, Meta is trying to buy its way to the top. Meta already owns a best-selling virtual reality fitness app, and it had the capabilities to compete even more closely with Within’s popular Supernatural app. But Meta chose to buy market position instead of earning it on the merits. This is an illegal acquisition, and we will pursue all appropriate relief.”

© Thomson Reuters 2022

 

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Metaverse May Open Up New World of Cybercrime, Fears Interpol

Global police agency Interpol said it was preparing for the risk that online immersive environments — the “metaverse” — could create new kinds of cybercrime and allow existing crime to take place on a larger scale.

Interpol’s member countries have raised concerns about how to prepare for possible metaverse crime, Madan Oberoi, Interpol’s executive director for technology and innovation, told Reuters.

“Some of the crimes may be new to this medium, some of the existing crimes will be enabled by the medium and taken to a new level,” he said.

Phishing and scams could operate differently when augmented reality and virtual reality are involved, Oberoi said. Child safety issues were also a concern, he said.

Virtual reality could also facilitate crime in the physical world, Oberoi said.

“If terror group wants to attack a physical space they may use this space to plan and simulate and launch their exercises before attacking,” he said.

Earlier this month, the European Union‘s law enforcement agency Europol said in a report that terror groups may, in the future, use virtual worlds for propaganda, recruitment and training. Users may also create virtual worlds with “extremist rules,” the report said.

If metaverse environments record users’ interactions on blockchain, “this might make it possible to follow everything someone does based on one interaction with them — providing valuable information for stalkers or extortionists,” Europol said.

The metaverse became a tech buzzword in 2021, with companies and investors betting that virtual world environments will grow in popularity and mark a new stage in the internet’s development. Facebook changed its name to Meta in November 2021 to mark its shift towards this idea.

But so far, this vision shows little signs of materialising. Meta’s stock value plunged on Thursday as investors voiced skepticism about spending on metaverse bets. Sales of blockchain-based assets representing virtual land and other digital possessions have also fallen sharply after a period of frenetic growth last year.

© Thomson Reuters 2022

 

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Meta India MD Lauds Government for Holding Companies Accountable for Internet Safety

Social media giant Meta India’s Vice President and Managing Director Ajit Mohan at a Delhi-based think tank event on Thursday lauded the Indian government and its policy, regarding the Internet and its security.

“We welcome government regulation. In India, the government has been vocal about holding companies accountable for internet safety and we are fully aligned with this agenda,” Ajit Mohan said.

Meta owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, among other products and services. It was formerly known as Facebook.

“The way the Indian government has promoted internet services in the country and practically digital services, it is a remarkable work and it is a matter of recognition,” the head of Meta India mentioned in his conversation that is how India is the power of wireless.

“What we have seen in India is the power of wireless. The digital transformation in India had started even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Low-cost 4G has been the key catalyst for the digital revolution,” he said.

India’s digital revolution is not limited to social media and internet services, rather it has transformed into big businesses and creating vibrant opportunities in the field of startups, entrepreneurs and transactions through high-quality internet services.

“The pandemic exposed people to a more digital way of living. We are now at a stage where more than a billion people in India have access to high-quality internet which will change the way we experience most services. The digital economy has led to a boom in entrepreneurship and the way business is conducted in India,” Ajit Mohan said during the discussion.

“We have found that if we build a platform that enables small business, it also leads to multiple benefits for us. We differentiated ourselves by serving small businesses and not just large clients,” he added.

Recently, several social media giants have faced criticism across the country regarding data compromise and hate speeches, with the Meta India chief clarifying how Meta and its companies are complying with the laws.

“We look at content moderation through two lenses: Adhering to public guidelines suited to local conditions and compliance with local laws. Our economic incentives are aligned with safety and security; marketers don’t want to advertise on unsafe platforms,” he said.

In his last comment, he said how Meta was making it more transparent for its consumers and had clearly mentioned about transparency policy.

He said there was value in moving towards more transparent algorithms and allowing for more explicit choices from consumers. “We are trying to work out mechanisms to allow for more transparency,” he said.

 

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Government May Set Up Committees to Redress User Grievance Against Social Media Platforms: Officials

The government plans to set up appellate committees to redress grievances that users may have against the way social media platforms initially addressed their complaints regarding content and other issues, officials said.

While tech giant Meta (which owns Facebook and WhatsApp) and microblogging site Twitter have been pushing for a self-regulated grievance appellate framework, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) wants adjudications to be done by three-member grievance appellate committees.

The panels will be constituted by tweaks in the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

Amendments may provide for social media platforms to acknowledge within 24 hours user complaints and resolve them within 15 days.

The complaints could range from child sexual abuse material to nudity to trademark and patent infringements, misinformation, impersonation of another person and content threatening the unity and integrity of the country.

Any person aggrieved by a decision of the grievance officer of social media platforms may prefer an appeal to the appellate committee within a period of 30 days, they said, adding that the amendment may provide for setting up of one or more such panels to address issues with different social media platforms.

The government had, in February 2021, notified the IT Rules (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code), 2021 for social media apps, online news portals, news aggregators and OTT platforms.

However, even after providing for the redressal mechanism through the IT Rules, 2021, many user grievances remained unresolved, prompting the government to step in and propose an appellate jurisdiction framework.

Each grievance appellate committee may consist of a chairperson and two whole-time members appointed by the central government, of which one will be a member ex-officio and two independent members.

The grievance appellate panel will deal with such appeal expeditiously and make an endeavour to resolve the appeal within 30 days from the date of receipt of the appeal.

There had been pushbacks from industry and some stakeholders on the proposal for the grievance appellate committee after the government, in June, circulated the draft rules around this. At present, “there is no appellate mechanism provided by intermediaries nor is there any credible self-regulatory mechanism in place”, the IT ministry had then said.

 

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WhatsApp Bitmoji-Style Avatars Reportedly Rolling Out to Some Beta Testers: All Details

Meta is gearing to deploy its signature Bitmoji-like avatars to its instant messaging app, WhatsApp. The feature will first reach a bunch of randomly selected beta testers on Android as part of its upcoming 2.22.23.9 app upgrade, as per a report. A new category called ‘Avatar’ is said to appear inside the app on the settings menu. Users will reportedly be able to customise their avatars on WhatsApp and they would make for a bunch of auto-generated stickers. Sooner than later, these avatars are expected to be rolled out to a wider userbase for WhatsApp in the coming days.

WABetaInfo feature tracker, along with some more beta users of the app have spotted the avatar feature on WhatsApp.

Meta, formerly Facebook, first introduced avatars on Messenger and the News Feed in 2019. A year later in 2020, these digital avatars also paved way to be used in Facebook comments and stories.

As part of Meta’s Web3 twist, the social networking giant has given a rather 3-D twist to its avatars before releasing them on Instagram. At the time, Aigerim Shorman, Meta’s general manager for avatars and identity, had called the introduction of these avatars Meta’s efforts toward building out its idea of the metaverse.

Despite Mark Zuckerberg’s attempts of adding metaverse-focussed features in its products, Meta’s metaverse division reported losses of a whopping $2.81 billion (roughly Rs. 22,410 crore) in the second quarter of 2022. Despite the financial dip however, Meta wishes to continue working on its metaverse services. For now, it remains unclear by when would WhatsApp bring the avatar feature to all of its users.

Meanwhile, the photo-messaging app has lined-up other features also that are scheduled for release in the coming days. Last week, for instance, WhatsApp began rolling-out the ability of editing messages on its platform. When the feature rolls out, WhatsApp would give users 15 minutes to edit the messages.

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Instagram Announces Upgrades to Protect Users From Abuse, Inappropriate Content

Instagram will enhance features that help users block the accounts of abusers and trolls on the social media platform, the Meta Platforms-owned company said on Thursday.

All the Instagram users will now be able to block all existing accounts of a person, expanding a feature launched last year that only allowed the blocking of any new accounts that they may create.

“Based on initial test results from this new change, we expect our community will need to block 4 million fewer accounts every week, since these accounts will now be blocked automatically,” Instagram said in a blog post.

The photo-sharing app has been doubling down on tackling hate speech and online abuse on its platform, which is more popular among teens and young adults than Meta‘s Facebook.

Instagram has also upgraded its feature that helps prevent users from viewing possibly abusive messages, by filtering offensive words to Stories replies, and said on Thursday it is expanding “nudges” designed to protect creators from harassment.

As elaborated by the social media company in its blog post, it updated the features to let users block on Instagram. Through the feature, a user has the ability to block multiple accounts created by a particular person. This also blocks existing accounts that person may already have.

The company also added an update to Hidden Words, launch last year, by letting users cover Stories replies which are offensive in nature. Moreover, inappropriate replies from people who you do not follow will be automatically sent to the Hidden Requests folder. 

Moreover, the support for Hidden Words has now extended to several other new languages, including Farsi, Russian, Turkish, Bengali, Marathi, Telugu and Tamil. 

In addition to these, Instagram will also display a community guideline request when a user will try to send a message to a creator. This practice is aimed at removing the usage of offensive words. 



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Facebook Parent Meta’s Oversight Board Can Now Apply Warning Screens to Moderate Content

Meta Platforms’ independent oversight board said on Thursday that starting this month, it can decide on applying warning screens, marking content as “disturbing” or “sensitive”.

The board, which already has the ability to review user appeals to remove content, said it would be able to make binding decisions to apply a warning screen when “leaving up or restoring qualifying content”, including to photos and videos.

Separately in its quarterly transparency report, the board said it received 3,47,000 appeals from Facebook and Instagram users around the world during the second quarter ended June 30.

“Since we started accepting appeals two years ago, we have received nearly two million appeals from users around the world,” the board report said.

“This demonstrates the ongoing demand from users to appeal Meta‘s content moderation decisions to an independent body.”

The oversight board, which includes academics, rights experts and lawyers, was created by the company to rule on a small slice of thorny content moderation appeals, but it can also advise on site policies.

Last month, it objected to Facebook’s removal of a newspaper report about the Taliban that it considered positive, backing users’ freedom of expression and saying the tech company relied too heavily on automated moderation.

In other news, Meta on Wednesday said that it built an artificial intelligence system that translates Hokkien into English even though the Taiwanese language lacks a standard written form.

The Silicon Valley tech titan that owns Facebook and Instagram billed the work at its Universal Speech Translator project as an effort to enable users from around the world to socialise regardless of the languages they speak.

“Spoken communications can help break down barriers and bring people together wherever they are located — even in the metaverse,” Meta said in a blog post.

© Thomson Reuters 2022

 

Buying an affordable 5G smartphone today usually means you will end up paying a “5G tax”. What does that mean for those looking to get access to 5G networks as soon as they launch? Find out on this week’s episode. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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