Vaishnaw told reporters that the government had recently issued a notice to companies on the deepfake issue, and the platforms responded, but added that the firms will have to be more aggressive in taking action on such content.
As large-scale layoffs begin at Facebook's parent company Meta, employees on work visas such as H-1Bs are now faced with uncertainty over their immigration status, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledging "this is especially difficult if you're here on a visa" and offering support to those impacted. Meta announced that it is laying off 11,000 employees or 13 per cent of its workforce, with Zuckerberg describing it as "some of the most difficult changes we've made in Meta's history." US-based technology companies hire a large amount of H-1B workers, the majority of whom come from countries such as India.
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, is likely to join the list of Big Tech companies going for large-scale layoffs. With this, almost the entire universe of FAANG - acronym for Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google - has now come under the layoff turbulence hitting tens of thousands of tech jobs around the world. Reports surfaced on Tuesday about the Mountain View (California)-headquartered tech giant planning to fire around 10,000 employees.
Catch J Baby in theatres, and if you want to watch more touching Tamil stories on the dysfunctional family, Arjun Menon lists where you can find them on OTT.
The content 'actioned' belonged to categories including bullying and harassment, violent and graphic content, adult nudity and sexual activity, child endangerment, dangerous organisations and individuals, and spam, among others.
Haven't they heard about the 'Tale of Two Brothers'? asks Suveen Sinha.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday met top officials of the finance and corporate affairs ministries to review the implementation of various announcements of the Union Budget FY24. "The finance minister underlined the importance of continuous assessment of progress to ensure that various announcements are implemented in a time-bound manner," the finance ministry said in a tweet. Sitharaman also discussed in detail various issues on the digital competition laws with Rajeev Chandrashekhar, the minister of state for entrepreneurship, skill development, electronics and technology.
Walmart-owned fintech firm PhonePe said it has crossed 500 million lifetime registered users on its platform. With this milestone, 1 in 3 Indians are now on PhonePe. The company said it is the first Indian internet company to have reached this scale globally. This milestone has been achieved in just over 7 years since the PhonePe UPI (Unified Payments Interface) payments launched in August 2016.
'He was an extremely naughty child, always in trouble and creating trouble.' 'He wanted to fly a kite at night, and sometimes, bunk school.' 'When I insisted on sending him, we could get a call from school that he had fainted.'
The minister also made it clear that "all platforms that do business in India and/or want to continue to do business in India, must use correct maps".
Reliance Jio has sent a second legal opinion to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) on the subject of the potential allocation of satellite spectrum. The letter is written by retired Supreme Court Justice L Nageshwara Rao and argues in favour of auctions, stating that any other method for allocating spectrum apart from auctions could be constitutionally unsound. Business Standard has reviewed the letter.
The government fully supports foreign and Indian companies in leveraging Internet as "force of good" but will take all measures to ensure that Internet remains open and is not dominated by some big corporates, Minister of State for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Wednesday. Chandrasekhar said the government wants to make sure that intermediaries and the big platforms such as Meta (formerly Facebook) and others develop a culture of mutual respect and accountability between the platform and its users. "And we also want to make sure that given that a billion Indians are going to be there... women, children, elderly, pensioners, all of them, that the internet is also safe and trusted.
'Enterprises have become more demanding in terms of their productivity expectation from their employees.'
Uttam Ghosh wonders whether Meta will be a kinder, gentler and non toxic version of Facebook and its progeny WhatsApp.
Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta, summed it up well as he explained the reason for the company sacking 13 per cent of its employees. He said no one predicted that the boom for digital services during the Covid pandemic would die out. "Many people predicted this would be a permanent acceleration that would continue even after the pandemic ended.
Assume Voot, JioCinema and Disney+ Hotstar are merged into one entertainment app, and you have a streaming service with more than 233 million unique visitors. That is a reach just under half of India's largest streaming app: YouTube. 'This level of consolidation does not exist even in the US.'
The latest cuts come after the company announced earlier this year that it was eliminating some 18,000 positions as part of a major cost-cutting bid at the e-commerce giant. "Given the uncertain economy... and the uncertainty that exists in the near future, we have chosen to be more streamlined in our costs and headcount," Jassy said in a memo to staff.
The first step to keeping your job safe, experts tell Rediff.com's Divya Nair, is understanding why layoffs happen.
Google will lay off 12,000 jobs across the globe, its CEO Sundar Pichai announced on Friday, becoming the latest tech giant after Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon to retrench staff en mass amid the global economic downturn. In an email to employees, the Indian-origin CEO said: "I have some difficult news to share. We've decided to reduce our workforce by approximately 12,000 roles." Pichai said the layoffs at Google were carried out after a "rigorous review" of its operations.
E-commerce player Meesho, backed by marquee investors like SoftBank Group and Meta Platforms, will look at an initial public offering (IPO) only in 2025, and till then, its focus will be on generating profits after tax and not just on being Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation)-positive, top sources in the company told Business Standard in New Delhi. In a clear shift of strategy, the company, which has reduced its cash burn by 85 per cent, is now looking to trim its annual revenue growth target to 40 per cent from the 100-plus per cent earlier. The sources, however, said even this level of growth was far higher than that of most e-commerce companies.
Indian mobile and Web consumers speak in 30 languages and around 1,600 dialects.
The Delhi police on Monday searched the houses of The Wire's founding editor Siddharth Varadarajan and deputy editor M K Venu in connection with a now retracted story related to the BJP's IT department head Amit Malviya, officials said.
Meta-owned Facebook 'actioned' about 21.6 million content pieces across 13 violation categories in India during March, according to a monthly report by the social media giant.
100 years of Dev Anand and 10 scenes etched in our memory!
Shikhar Dhawan opened up on one instance where he tried learning one of Suryakumar Yadav's shots in the T20 World Cup 2022.
'Be it Khan highlighting the issues with a rigged system, or schooling accountability from the government, or stressing the power of the vote, or that baap/beta line -- this is a kind of swashbuckling that Hindi film audiences haven't seen from their heroes for many years,' notes Mayur Sanap.
Ordering groceries, vegetables and daily essentials is just a WhatsApp away as billionaire Mukesh Ambani's e-commerce platform JioMart taps into the popular messaging app to scale up online business in its fight for dominance in the giant Indian retail market with Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart. Ambani's twin children, Akash and Isha gave a preview of the ordering at Meta's second edition of the Fuel for India event on Wednesday. A new 'tap and chat' option allows users to order groceries through WhatsApp.
'The risks for injury and mortality will be increasing, and these risks are factored into the reintroduction plan'
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's children -- Isha, Akash and Anant -- on Monday were appointed on the board of his energy-to-technology conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd, in what is seen as a clear path of succession planning at India's most valuable company.
There has been a rise of around 82 per cent in hate speech on social media platform Facebook and 86 per cent jump in violent and inciting content on Instagram, according to a monthly report released by Meta.
Back home, the Nifty IT index - a gauge of the performance of the IT stocks on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) that has closely mirrored the performance of NASDAQ over the past few years - has lost nearly 2 per cent in CY23.
Tech giant Apple has stopped accepting payments via debit and credit cards in India. Apple has stopped accepting cards for subscriptions, and purchases using credit cards issued by banks in India. Apple will also not accept payments for ad campaigns on Apple Search using credit cards issued by Indian banks. All campaigns will be put on hold from June 1.
The Editors Guild of India on Wednesday said it was extremely disturbed by the manner in which the Delhi police carried out searches and seizures at the homes of the editors of The Wire as well as their office and the newsroom.
Messaging platform WhatsApp on Wednesday said it has rolled out a pilot program across 500 villages across Karnataka and Maharashtra, aimed at empowering villagers with access to digital payments through 'payments on WhatsApp'. The announcement was made at Fuel For India 2021 - Meta's annual event in India. WhatsApp India Head Abhijit Bose said the pilot aims to effect a behavioral transformation to digital payments at the grassroots.
Microsoft will lay off 10,000 workers, about five per cent of its total workforce, its CEO Satya Nadella announced on Wednesday, terming it a hard choice that the tech giant had to make to remain a "consequential company" amid global economic uncertainties. Microsoft is the latest company after Facebook and Amazon to cut jobs as the bloodbath continues in the technology sector in 2023. Describing the current times as "significant change", Indian-origin Nadella said customers who accelerated their digital spend during the Covid-19 pandemic, are now optimising their digital spend to do more with less.
Social media allowed them to connect even more directly with potential clients, and gave them multiple new marketing and outreach channels, explains Devangshu Datta.
It also said the cheetahs will be allowed to move out of KNP and will not necessarily be "recaptured unless they venture into areas where they are in significant danger".
As we enjoy his thrilling The Night Manager series, Deepa Gahlot looks at 10 Anil Kapoor films on OTT that shows off his versatility and star power.
A bench of Justices BR Gavai and Vikram Nath was told by the Centre in its application moved by additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati that a status report in this regard will be filed before the court within six months on the basis of the advice of the experts on the tanslocation of Asiatic lions from Gir to Kuno.
Significant controls and exemptions to the government under the proposed Digital Personal Data Protection bill 2022 are likely to make it harder for companies to invest in data centres and data processing activities in India, according to global technology industry body ITI. The ministry of electronics and IT has floated draft Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill 2022 and has invited comments on the same till January 2. "The Bill grants significant controls to the executive arm of GOI (Government of India) and delegates much of the detailed rulemaking authority to separate, as yet undefined processes.
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