Instagram has upgraded its group video calling feature, allowing six people to join a single video call. When the company launched the video chat feature in June this year as part of its in-app direct messaging system, it supported four people. Interestingly, Apple is also beta-testing group video calling via FaceTime, which supports as many as 32 participants.
The Obesity Trigger
A recent report by Cancer Research UK says children who spend at least 30 minutes of their leisure time online every day are twice as likely to spend their pocket money on junk food and thus become overweight. Those spending more than three hours a day online are four times more likely to buy such foods and 79 per cent more likely to be overweight or obese. According to
researchers, the findings show the need to protect children from junk food advertisements online.
Facebook's Next Step
Weeks after the Irish watchdog data protection commissioner opened a formal investigation into a recent data breach that affected nearly 50 million accounts of Facebook, the social media giant says it will remove false voting-related posts, leading up to and during the midterm elections in the US. Facebook will ban posts spreading fake information about voting requirements and false reports of violence. The new policy is a tougher expansion of Facebook's effort to reduce voter manipulation.
Ten million number of tweets generated by Russia and Iran-backed troll accounts, with some dating back to 2009. Twitter has recently published the archive in a bid to give researchers more insight into 'potential information operations'. It is largely believed that the disinformation campaigns mostly occurred around the 2016 US presidential election, but the new data shows that some originated far in advance.