The good news is Facebook has shut down white supremacists and hate speech. The bad news was that it happened after the live streaming of the horror Christchurch massacre in March. The even worse news is that Facebook’s notoriously lax policies around data privacy were confirmed when it was revealed that hundreds of millions of its users’ passwords were stored in an unencrypted plain text format.
This week Apple announced its much-anticipated news service, as well as a streaming service to rival Netflix, a games arcade and a credit card. Instead of the usual hype around physical product launches, Apple casually announced a new iMac, two new iPads and new AirPods as a warm up to Monday’s hype-filled launch of these new services. That alone is remarkable.
If you want a good picture of what Facebook seems to be pivoting itself to become, start using that great everything app WeChat.
South Africans tend to think of it as just a messaging app, an alternative to WhatsApp.
If ever Alanis Morrissette wanted a definition of “ironic” it was Mark Zuckerberg’s use last week of the word “privacy”. He says bizarre things like Robert Mugabe used to, oblivious to the reality on the ground, and how absurd his utterance sound.
The newest sensation to hit these all-important devices are foldable screens. Last week Samsung got the jump on its competitors by announcing its Galaxy Fold before the annual Mobile World Congress. As the cellular industry gathered in Barcelona this week, Huawei announced their own foldable, the Mate X, the day before the main conference began on Monday.
What is it about the portfolio that the communications minister so often seems bereft of their senses?
During the ongoing Please Call me saga between Vodacom and its former employee Nkosana Makate, Communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams last month tweeted: “Just shut up Vodacom and do the right thing. ’Talk to Makate’ instead of this poor PR stunt. Don’t talk to us until you have reached a settlement with him and his team.”
Turning 15 is a drag. Just ask any teenager about this most awkward age of life and the pain of living through it. Imagine then that you’re Facebook. Last week as the largest social media network reached this milestone it seemed every bit the gangly kid trying to look cool while being beset by angst and self-doubt. And being hated by the rest of the class.
Who really invented the Please Call Me service? It’s the question that’s been repeated innumerable times as the free messaging…
Facebook intends to combine is messaging apps – WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram – into a single backend so people can message…
This column first appeared in Financial Mail in 2015. It has all the makings of a grand story of a…