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BEIJING, Nov 11, 2023 (AFP) – China’s annual “Singles Day” sales bonanza wraps up at midnight on Saturday, but consumers this year appear largely unswayed by its flashy deals and discounts as the world’s second-largest economy slows. Conceived by tech giant Alibaba, “Singles Day” — which this year spanned well over a week — was launched in 2009 and has since ballooned into a yearly blockbuster retail period. Sales for last year’s Singles Day reached […]
SYDNEY, Nov 8, 2023 (AFP) – Nationwide outages hit a major Australian communications company Wednesday, disrupting phone lines, crashing payment systems and impacting millions of customers. Optus said it was scrambling to restore its mobile and internet services to more than 10 million customers across Australia. Company chief executive Kelly Bayer Rosmarin told national broadcaster ABC there was “no indication” the outage was the result of hacking or a cyber attack — but that engineers […]
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 1, 2023 (AFP) – The Walt Disney Company on Wednesday announced it will buy Comcast’s $8.6 billion stake in Hulu, completing its takeover of the streaming service. The acquisition will “further Disney’s streaming objectives,” the company said in a press release, and comes as it strives to boost subscriber numbers at its Disney+ streaming service. The deal values Hulu at $27.5 billion in total, according to Disney, which said the transaction will […]
HANOI, Oct 6, 2023 (AFP) – Social media giants YouTube, TikTok and Facebook removed nearly 800 “anti-state” or “false” posts in Vietnam over the course of a month at the request of the communist government, state media said Friday. Around 380 YouTube videos, 364 Facebook posts and 33 TikTok links were taken down or blocked between mid-August and mid-September, state-controlled Thanh Nien newspaper said in a report, quoting the Ministry of Information and Communications […]
JAKARTA, Oct 3, 2023 (AFP) – Short video app TikTok said it will stop transactions on its app in Indonesia from Wednesday after Southeast Asia’s biggest economy banned direct sales on social media platforms last week to protect millions of small businesses. The new regulation is yet another setback for TikTok, which has faced intense scrutiny in the United States and other nations in recent months over users’ data security and the company’s alleged ties […]
JAKARTA, Sept 25, 2023 (AFP) – Indonesian President Joko Widodo said new regulation on social media commerce could be passed as soon as Tuesday, as Jakarta aims to rein in sales on tech platforms it says are harming local businesses. Indonesian users spent more money on TikTok than anywhere else in Southeast Asia over the past year, as the app’s e-commerce arm rapidly grew to gain a substantial regional market share and millions of sellers […]
GENEVA, Sept 12, 2023 (AFP) – A third of the world’s population is still without access to the internet, even though the number of people connected has never been so high, according to the latest UN statistics published on Tuesday. Around 100 million more people are able to access the internet since last year’s census by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UN agency for information and communication technologies. That means 67 percent of the […]
OTTAWA, June 29, 2023 (AFP) — Google on Thursday became the latest Silicon Valley giant to block Canadian users from seeing local news on its platform after Ottawa passed a bill requiring tech companies to pay for such content. The Online News Act became law last week, aiming to support a struggling Canadian news sector that has seen hundreds of publications close in the last decade. It requires digital giants to make fair commercial deals […]
OTTAWA, (AFP) — Facebook and Instagram users in Canada will be blocked from viewing Canadian news, parent-company Meta said Thursday, after Ottawa passed a bill requiring digital giants to pay for such content. Google, another critic of the Online News Act, has previously said it is considering a similar move. The two Silicon Valley giants have pushed back against the bill, which aims to support a struggling Canadian news sector that has seen hundreds of […]
NEW DELHI, June 13, 2023 (AFP) – India on Tuesday denied claims it had threatened to shut down Twitter inside the country if it did not block accounts critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. The world’s biggest democracy petitions Twitter for content removals more than almost any other country, and the platform regularly takes down or blocks content at the request of Indian authorities. Former chief executive Jack Dorsey said Monday that the platform […]
UNITED NATIONS, United States (AFP) — Alarm over advancements in artificial intelligence must not obscure the “grave” harm already being done by digital platforms rife with misinformation, UN chief Antonio Guterres said Monday, as he proposed an international code of conduct. Rapidly developing AI tools, including chatbots, image generators and voice cloning technology, have sparked global concern over their striking ability to disseminate falsehoods. Guterres said he endorsed the idea for the creation of an […]
PARIS, June 1, 2023 (AFP) – The upper house Senate of France’s parliament was Thursday due to pass a law that will better regulate social media influencers by limiting and regulating their ability to endorse products and encourage betting. The lower house National Assembly late on Wednesday gave its green light to the bill which has wide-cross party support — highly unusual in France’s current tense political climate — after being proposed by deputies […]
