The new feature will also be released on WhatsApp beta for Android soon…reports Asian Lite News
WhatsApp has rolled out a new feature to some beta testers that allows users to see profile photos within group chats on a desktop.
This feature will help users to identify group members for which they don’t have the phone number or when they have the same name, reports WABetaInfo.
If a group member does not set up a profile photo or if it is hidden due to privacy restrictions, the default profile icon appears and it is highlighted using the same colour as the contact name.
The new feature will also be released on WhatsApp beta for Android soon.
The messaging platform started to work on this new feature for WhatsApp Desktop beta in October.
The company plans to introduce the feature on desktop and iOS beta to help group members recognise other people in their groups better, the report said.
Meta last week sacked more than 11,000 employees, or 13 per cent of its workforce, in one of the worst tech lay-offs that hit various teams in India…reports Asian Lite News
Amid the heightened insecurity and mass layoffs, two top Meta India officials — Abhijit Bose, Head of India, WhatsApp and Rajiv Aggarwal, Director of Public Policy, Meta India — have resigned, the company confirmed on Tuesday.
Shivnath Thukral, Director of WhatsApp Public Policy, India has been appointed as Director, Public Policy, Meta India (across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp in India), replacing Aggarwal who joined Meta last year from Uber.
“I want to thank Abhijit Bose for his tremendous contributions as our first Head of WhatsApp in India. His entrepreneurial drive helped our team deliver new services that have benefited millions of people and businesses,” Will Cathcart, Head of WhatsApp, said in a statement.
“There is so much more WhatsApp can do for India and we’re excited to continue helping advance India’s digital transformation,” Cathcart added.
In a LinkedIn post, Bose said that it “has been a tough week for all of our team at WhatsApp as we had to say Goodbyes to many amazing teammates last week”.
“It’s been 4 years since I joined as WhatsApp’s first Country Head in India, After a small break, I plan to rejoin the entrepreneurial world; you’ll see announcements on that shortly,” Bose wrote.
Earlier this month, Ajit Mohan, head of Meta in India, left the social network to join rival Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, as lead of the company’s Asia-Pacific business.
Cathcart said that Aggarwal has decided to step down from his role at Meta to pursue another opportunity.
“Over the last year, he has played an important role in leading our policy-led initiatives in areas such as user-safety, privacy and scaling up programs like GOAL to drive digital inclusion in the country,” he added.
Thukral, the new Director, Public Policy for Meta in India, has been with the Public Policy team since 2017.
In his new role, Thukral will define and lead important policy development initiatives across apps — Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — in India, the company confirmed.
“We remain committed to our users in India and will continue to contribute meaningfully to the regulatory process that will enable everyone to harness the full potential of India’s digital economy,” said Manish Chopra, Director, Partnerships, India – Meta.
The company said these top-level resignations in India “are completely unrelated to the recent news cycles”.
Meta last week sacked more than 11,000 employees, or 13 per cent of its workforce, in one of the worst tech lay-offs that hit various teams in India.
Under the upgraded IT Rules 2021, major digital and social media platforms, with in excess of five million users, have to publish monthly compliance reports…reports Asian Lite News
Meta-owned WhatsApp on Tuesday said it banned over 26 lakh accounts in India in the month of September in compliance with the new IT Rules, 2021, which are now being amended to put more responsibilities on social media platforms.
The messaging platform, which has nearly 500 million users (according to third-party data) in the country, received 666 complaint reports in September in India, and the records “actioned” were 23.
“In accordance with the IT Rules 2021, we’ve published our report for the month of September 2022. This user-safety report contains details of the user complaints received and the corresponding action taken by WhatsApp, as well as WhatsApp’s own preventive actions to combat abuse on our platform,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.
The platform banned over 23 lakh bad accounts in India in August.
Under the upgraded IT Rules 2021, major digital and social media platforms, with in excess of five million users, have to publish monthly compliance reports.
Meanwhile, in a major push towards an open, safe, trusted and accountable Internet, the Ministry of Electronics and IT has notified some amendments aimed at protecting the rights of “Digital Nagriks”.
Currently, social media intermediaries are only required to inform users about not uploading certain categories of harmful/unlawful content.
The amendments impose a legal obligation on intermediaries to take reasonable efforts to prevent users from uploading such content.
Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that protection of constitutional rights of the Indian citizens is a must.
The amendments were notified after the Ministry followed an exhaustive public consultation process involving all stakeholders.
The new provisions will ensure that the intermediary’s obligation is not a mere formality.
Snapchat AR creator community grows 60% in India
Snapchat on Tuesday said that its augmented reality (AR) creator community in India grew by 60 per cent this year, riding on its successful localisation strategy piloted in the country.
Since its launch in India, time spent on Spotlight by the Indian Snapchatter community has increased by 175 per cent (YOY).
Discover, Snap’s content platform featuring selected partners, had over 140 million Indian Snapchatters watching a show in 2022, while local channels publishing premium content on Discover increased by 150 per cent (YOY), said the company.
Snap, the parent company of Snapchat, said in a statement that the localisation strategy has been the key in expanding cultural moments by adding more regional festivals, upskilling the Indian youth in AR to develop highly active and creative local creator communities, and has gone on to become a roadmap adopted by other global Snap markets.
“This year, to celebrate the diversity and festive spirit in India, Snap collaborated with Indian lens creators to introduce AR Lenses for over 75 local festivals and rolled out over 500 hyperlocal geofilters across cities to help Snapchatters engage with their communities at a hyper-local level,” said the company.
These creators are now active users of Lens Studio, Snap’s free, desktop application designed to help artists, designers, and developers build AR experiences
To drive AR skilling among the Indian youth, Snap partnered with Atal Innovation Mission and NITI Aayog to help reach more than 8,000 government schools in India and train over 12,000 teachers educating millions of students across the country with AR, over a two-year time frame, said the company.
The new experience will enable the customers to browse the JioMart catalog, add products to the cart and make purchases all within WhatsApp…reports Asian Lite News
As Meta doubles down on its monetisation drive across its family of apps, its Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that JioMart on WhatsApp in India is going to be a big opportunity for the paid messaging market.
During the company’s Q3 earnings call, Zuckerberg said that paid messaging is another opportunity that we are starting to tap into.
“We launched JioMart on WhatsApp in India, and it’s our first end-to-end shopping experience that shows the potential for chat-based commerce through messaging,” Zuckerberg told analysts.
“So between click-to-messaging and paid messaging, I am confident that this is going to be a big opportunity,” he added.
In August, Meta and Jio Platforms launched an end-to-end shopping experience, where users can shop from e-commerce platform JioMart via using WhatsApp chat.
The new experience will enable the customers to browse the JioMart catalog, add products to the cart and make purchases all within WhatsApp.
Zuckerberg said that the company is putting the foundation in place now to scale the paid messaging ambition.
The JioMart-WhatsApp launch is part of a strategic partnership between Meta and Jio Platforms to accelerate India’s digital transformation and provide people and businesses of all sizes opportunities to connect in new ways and fuel economic growth in the country.
“Excited to launch our partnership with JioMart in India. This is our first-ever end-to-end shopping experience on WhatsApp — people can now buy groceries from JioMart right in a chat,” Zuckerberg had said in an earlier Facebook Post.
“Business messaging is an area with real momentum and chat-based experiences like this will be the go-to way people and businesses communicate in the years to come,” he added.
Users can start shopping on JioMart via WhatsApp by simply sending ‘Hi’ to the JioMart number on WhatsApp.
About 95 per cent of Whatsapp subscribers surveyed got spam while every mobile subscriber surveyed got it…reports Asian Lite News
Meta-owned WhatsApp has become a spam factory as more than one in two Indians now say that they are facing four or more spam messages each day, a report showed on Wednesday.
Despite clear norms laid by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on unsolicited communication, consumers still face unwanted calls, SMS (short messaging services) and Whatsapp messages from vendors, telemarketers, banks, insurance brokers, car dealers, pathology labs, property and other investment agents, among others.
About 68 per cent mobile subscribers, on an average, receive 4 or more promotional or spam SMSs every day with every subscriber surveyed getting spam, according to online community platform LocalCircles.
About 95 per cent of Whatsapp subscribers surveyed got spam while every mobile subscriber surveyed got it.
Financial services, real estate services, and pathology services are top sectors sending spam SMS as well spam Whatsapp, indicating the same offenders are now spamming using both channels.
About 77 per cent mobile subscribers surveyed want the TRAI to work with telcos and enable mark spam feature with each SMS.
There were reports that the Department of Telecommunication (DOT) has decided to levy fines ranging from Rs 1,000 per violation for zero-10 breaches, Rs 5,000 each for 10-50 violations, and Rs 10,000 each for more than 50 violations by registered telemarketers.
However, the telecom authority has not issued any notification in this regard.
“Unsolicited SMS, not to be confused with communication from government or any other authorised source, is a misuse of citizens’ personal data. Many people face issues of unwanted messages and calls made to them by fraudsters, spammers, telemarketers, despite registering on TRAI’s Do Not Call Registry (NDNS),” the findings showed.
Last year, around 93 million phone numbers registered with the TRAI’s NDNS were kept on sale on the Darknet, according to reports.
Whatsapp Business was rolled out a few years ago and in 2021, the company mandated that users of the platform must receive messages from Whatsapp Business (based on their usage of Whatsapp and parent platform Facebook) for them to continue using the platform, according to LocalCircles report.
While users resisted this initially and started using alternate platforms like Signal and Telegram, over time most gave up and accepted the revised terms.
About 77 per cent said that TRAI should work with telcos to mandatorily embed mark spam in each SMS message so users can easily report spammers.
The last date for seeking comments on the draft legislation is October 20…reports Asian Lite News
Toughening its stand against video communication and calling apps, the Centre has proposed to bring Meta-owned WhatsApp, Zoom, and Google Duo under the ambit of telecom licence, as written in the draft of the Indian Telecommunication Bill 2022.
The government has, however, proposed to give exemption to press messages that are intended to be published in India of correspondents accredited to the Central or state governments from being intercepted.
“For provision of Telecommunication Services and Telecommunication Networks, an entity shall have to obtain a license,” according to the draft.
The last date for public comment on the draft is October 20.
In another significant clause, the draft bill, released late Wednesday, proposes to waive off fees and penalty of telecom and internet service providers.
The exemption for press messages, though, won’t be given in case of any public emergency or in the interest of public safety, sovereignty, integrity or security of India, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, or to prevent incitement to an offence, the draft read.
The draft bill was put up on social media by IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.
Public comments have been sought on it.
The last date for seeking comments on the draft legislation is October 20.
It also proposes refund of fees if an internet or telecom service provider offers to surrender the license.
The draft bill says that the Centre may “waive off in part or full any fee, including entry fees, license fees, registration fees or any other fees or charges, interest, additional charges or penalty” for any licence holder or registered entity under the telecom rules.
Meanwhile, Telecom minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that Wireless Planning and Coordination (WPC) reforms would make it easier for telecom companies to apply for permits from the government.
He also said these reforms would give impetus to taking the process online. Vaishnaw said the draft Bill aims at bringing down the duration for granting licensing to 28 days.
The minister also said the proposed legislation would reduce the Right of Way (RoW) approval permission down to 6-7 days. Vaishnaw, also the minister for railways, was speaking at 9th Annual Forum of Public Affairs Forum of India (PAFI).
He said on railway ministry, “The capex for railways saw a steep jump with Rs 1.93 lakh crore of investment last year initiated by the ministry with an eye to improve the consumer experience and seamless integration with nation-wide logistics.”
The complaints were received via the grievance mechanisms and accounts were actioned through its prevention and detection methods for violating the laws of the land or its terms of service…reports Asian Lite News
Meta-owned WhatsApp banned more than 22 lakh bad accounts in India in the month of June in compliance with the new IT Rules, 2021, the company said on Tuesday.
The platform had banned over 19 lakh bad accounts in the country in May.
The messaging platform also received 632 grievance reports in June within the country, and the accounts “actioned” were 64.
In May, WhatsApp received 528 grievance reports and the accounts “actioned” were 24.
“WhatsApp is an industry leader in preventing abuse, among end-to-end encrypted messaging services. Over the years, we have consistently invested in Artificial Intelligence and other state-of-the-art technology, data scientists and experts, and in processes, in order to keep our users safe on our platform,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.
Published in accordance with Rule 4(1)(d) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, the report contained information on actions taken by WhatsApp in response to grievances received from users in India.
The complaints were received via the grievance mechanisms and accounts were actioned through its prevention and detection methods for violating the laws of the land or its terms of service.
‘Accounts Actioned’ denotes reports where WhatsApp took remedial action based on the report.
Under the new IT Rules 2021, big digital and social media platforms, with more than 5 million users, have to publish monthly compliance reports.
Calls to relax IT rules
An industry group called Asia Internet Coalition (AIC) representing US-based Big Tech firms have urged India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to make changes in the proposed amendments to the country’s new IT Rules, 2021 which would “negate the government’s commitment to ease of doing business”.
In a letter to the IT Ministry, the coalition that represents Apple, Meta, Google, Amazon, Twitter, and Spotify, among others, said that the proposed changes in the new IT Rules 2021 would affect continuity in business operations for all intermediaries that have made significant investments in the country in regard to technology, workforce, and other resources.
The coalition said that intermediaries, as conceived under Section 79 of the IT Act, only provide a technology platform or a computer resource as a service to the user.
“It is ultimately the user who determines the nature of content to be communicated or transmitted on the platforms/computer resources operated by the intermediaries. Given this, it may be more beneficial to impose mandates prohibiting the dissemination of certain types of content on the user itself,” it argued.
The digital giants are given time until Wednesday to complete the registration for licensing….reports Asian Lite News
The Indonesian authorities are set to block social media applications and online sites including Google, Facebook, and WhatsApp in several days if they fail to register with the country’s Ministry of Communications and Informatics.
The digital giants are given time until Wednesday to complete the registration for licensing. Otherwise, the ministry will name them illegal and unlawful in the country, Xinhua news agency reported.
“We have warned all local and foreign tech companies, including online services, sites, and application providers, many times that they have to register if they do not want to risk being blocked. We have given them time since six months ago,” the ministry’s Director General for Information Applications Semuel Abrijani told reporters on Tuesday.
The registration is part of the country’s new regulation starting from January 2022, saying all tech platforms must secure licenses to be able to operate. The regulation will allow the authorities to order the platforms to take down any contents considered unlawful, inappropriate and “disturb public order,” within four hours if deemed urgent, and 24 hours if not.
The Indonesian government is currently trying to reduce the spreading of misinformation and hoaxes, particularly ahead of the country’s general election in 2024.
“However, the price of using these methods, although not against the law, must not result in a lack of transparency and inadequate data security,” he added…reports Asian Lite News
Britain should review the use of WhatsApp, private emails and other messaging apps by ministers and government officials after an investigation found “inadequate data security” during the COVID-19 pandemic, its data protection watchdog said on Monday.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said the review should examine the “systemic risks” around the use of private correspondence channels and to ensure improvements were made.
“I understand the value of instant communication that something like WhatsApp can bring, particularly during the pandemic where officials were forced to make quick decisions and work to meet varying demands.” said John Edwards, the UK Information Commissioner.
“However, the price of using these methods, although not against the law, must not result in a lack of transparency and inadequate data security,” he added.
The recommendation follows a year-long investigation into the use of such messaging channels by government ministers and officials at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) during the COVID pandemic.
The IOC said the investigation found a “lack of clear controls” and the potential of important information “being lost or insecurely handled”.
Earlier this month, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) approved an additional 60 million users for UPI for WhatsApp – taking its cap to 100 million for Payments…reports Asian Lite News
Meta-owned WhatsApp has confirmed that it is running a cash-back campaign in India to drive more users on its digital payments service.
The company is giving away Rs 11 cashback up to three times by sending money to three different contacts via unified payments interface (UPI) on WhatsApp.
“We are running a campaign offering cashback incentives in a phased manner to our users as a way to unlock the potential of payments on WhatsApp,” a company spokesperson told IANS.
“We’ll continue to drive awareness of payments on WhatsApp as part of our broader efforts to bring the next 500 million Indians onto the digital payments ecosystem,” the spokesperson added.
If you become eligible for the promotion, you will see a banner within the app, or a gift icon when you’re sending money to an eligible receiver, according to WhatsApp.
“Once selected, you can send money to any of your registered WhatsApp contacts and receive Rs 11 cashback per successful transaction,” the company informed.
Google and Paytm have also offered cask-back to users to drive more engagement and retention growth on their respective platforms.
On its support page, WhatsApp said that it will not offer cash-back for QR code payments, payments made on collect requests or made by entering the UPI ID of recipient, as well as payments on third-party online apps using WhatsApp.
Earlier this month, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) approved an additional 60 million users for UPI for WhatsApp – taking its cap to 100 million for Payments.
“We believe there is an opportunity for UPI to have an even greater impact for the country — especially in rural regions where digital and financial inclusion can significantly improve peoples’ lives,” Manesh Mahatme, Director-Payments, WhatsApp India, had told IANS.
In November last year, the NPCI approved increasing the user cap for WhatsApp’s payment service from the current 20 million to 40 million users.
The NPCI has been giving approval to WhatsApp in a phased manner so that the competition in the digital payment space in the country is not stifled.
WhatsApp kicked off its ambitious peer-to-peer (P2P) digital payments pilot project in India in 2018 with nearly 10 lakh users.
