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Facebook now available in 8 Indian languages on mobile

Nicholas — Fri, 04 May 2012 15:12:48 +0000

Asia Bizz: The most popular social networking site Facebook announced a new facility for its users in India on April 3, 2012. Facebook users can now access the website in eight different Indian languages from their mobile phones.

The social networking site made an announcement that the new facility will be rolled out in phases in the next few weeks. Kevin D’Souza, the Country growth Manager of Facebook in a statement revealed that as a result of India’s 50 million users on Facebook, it wanted to make sure that everyone has a great Facebook experience on their mobile phones regardless of the device they choose to use.

Facebook users can now use the site with the help of the application, ‘Facebook For Every Phone’, which is available in three languages – Hindi, Malay and Vietnamese apart from seven local Indian languages including Tamil, Malayalam, Gujarati, Punjabi, Marathi and Bengali. Earlier the social networking site could be accessed only in English.

Originally, the application was launched in 2011 and now it works on more than 3,600 Java enabled phones across the globe. After the United States, India is the second largest market for Facebook. In the month of March, the company said that the number of users in India and Brazil is increasing day by day.

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Facebook, Google and YouTube to be forced to set up servers in India?

Anita — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 06:54:51 +0000

On April 20, 2012, the UPA government indicated an urge to regulate and remove India-specific, abusive, provocative and communal content on Facebook, Google and YouTube to Jane Holl Lute, the visiting deputy secretary for homeland security. The Indian team lead by R K Singh said that inaction on the part of the US can lead to force New Delhi to pressurise the service providers to have servers based in the country.

Critical issues like home grown terror, megacity policing, megacity, capacity building and fake currency racket were discussed by Lute and Singh. The discussion was a part of the ongoing homeland security dialogue.

Lute recognised the Indian concerns. A course for three days is being organized in Washington with the US Secretive Service so as to help the Indian police to tackle the fake currency racket in the country.

Singh even expressed concerns over the objectionable content on the websites and also wanted a real-time action from the companies based in the US. The home ministry officials have also said that the US homeland security department institute must incorporate a procedure which removes the malafied content within a specific time period. Singh told that if the US operating procedures are not in place then New Delhi might have to force the service providers to set up servers in India.

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Facebook India Users Confused Due to Non Access

Agatha Vyland — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 15:15:56 +0000

Asia Bizz: Users of the social networking site Facebook in India were left confused when they were not able to access the website on March 13, 2012 . In the morning hours, the site kept crashing and left the users in the dark on the issue at a hand.

Later, full access to the website was restored, while many of the users complained of trouble in signing in. The users trying to access the website through the desktops were affected the most and were unable to post or share links on the site which kept crashing.

Others were able to access through mobile apps and the mobile site m.facebook.com. In such a situation, Facebook users turn to Twitter most of the time to vent out their frustration on not having access to the social networking site.

The DNS (Domain Name System) and Facebook issue are still trending on Twitter. The DNS helps in translating the queries for domain names that are meaningful to humans in to IP addresses to locate the computer services and devices worldwide.

Last week, the social networking site had faced an issue of DNS when the European users faced an outage. Even Twitter was abuzz with offering help to the users to solve the DNS issue.

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Yahoo Inc Sues Facebook for Patent Infringement

Agatha Vyland — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 14:23:58 +0000

Asia Bizz: American internet corporation Yahoo Inc. has sued social networking site Facebook on March 12, 2012 over ten patents. The latest paten battle includes methods and systems for advertising on the web. The suit has been filed in a San Jose, California federal court and has marked the first major legal battle between the technology giants in social media as well as the major escalation of patent litigation.

The patent war has already taken off when it comes to smartphones and tablets, with the involvement of major firms like Apple Inc, Microsoft and Motorola Mobility Holdings. The lawsuit from Yahoo comes after Facebook’s announcement of plans for an initial public offering which could value the company at about $100 billion. On Monday, the spokesperson for Facebook did not respond to the request for comments.

Yahoo, in an emailed statement, said that it is confidential and will prevail. The company in the statement added that unfortunately the matter with Facebook remains unresolved and that they are compelled to seek redress in federal court.

Social networking sites have always been vulnerable of lawsuits, be it for patent infringement or objectionable content. Many social networking sites are at present facing lawsuit in India for objectionable content.

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Facebook appeals to remove its name from objectionable content suit accusation list

Anita — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:45:20 +0000

Asia Bizz: In the popular case of hosting objectionable content in which 21 social networking sites have been accused, Facebook has kept their side of explanation. The social networking site, who is one of the accused in the case in Indiam said in one of the appeals made to the trial court in Delhi that they are not responsible for the content uploaded by the users.

The popular social networking site added that their name must be removed from the accusation list. Facebook explained that it is not responsible for the content that is posted by the users that may appear on the website.

The representatives of the social networking site added that it is being wrongly prosecuted under the incorrect description of Facebook and stated that it correct addressal is ‘Facebook India Online Services Pvt Ltd’. Facebook India also explained that it did not control or operate the servers which host the Facebook.com website located in the US Facebook India.

The statement from the website further added that the objectionable content lawsuit that has been filed against it is deliberate and has been done with ulterior motives. It also added that the present suit is a gross abuse of the process of law and filled with ulterior motive of publicity and causing harassment.

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Google and Facebook follow court orders to remove objectionable content?

Freddie — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:51:00 +0000

Asia Bizz: After the orders issued by the Delhi Court to remove objectionable content from social networking websites, internet giants Facebook India and Google India submitted their reports to the court. The websites have obeyed the orders issued by the court in terms of the objectionable content.

Google India said that it has removed certain web pages from the internet on which the objections were raised by the petitioners. On the other hand, Yahoo, Facebook and Microsoft told the court that they do not have any role in the case and that there is no cause of action against them.

Praveen Singh the Additional Civil Judge asked the counsel appearing for the petitioner Mufti Aijaz Arshad Qasmi , if the service providing companies can be made a party to the case for the content posted by the users on the blogs. The court also heard the petition on 12:30 pm today and also asked Google, why they were not able to come up with a proper reply.

The court also alleged that after all that happened in the past months, the search engine giant had to be prepared. The petitioner has also been asked by the court to supply the copies of all the documents relied upon to all the opposite parties.

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Indian army officers asked to quit Facebook?

Freddie — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:24:10 +0000

Asia Bizz: In some bad news for the officers in the Indian army, reports state that they have been directed to quit all the social networking sites. Orders have been issued to all its men who have joined the social networking sites like Facebook or Orkut following a recent confidential information leak online.

Officers who have not joined the sites have been asked not to join any social network or make themselves available on such social networks while in the army. The Indian army has been monitoring its officers to see if they have been posting any pictures of the army in their units in uniform or with their weapons.

The officers have now been directed not to join the sites as there was a fear that vital information could be leaked out to unwanted sources. If any officer is noticed violating the rules then strict action could be taken against the offenders.

Facebook has been facing legal action by the Indian government for the permitting the posting of obscene content on its network. The social networking site is among 12 other websites that have also been sued by the Indian government. The teams of these websites have argued that there cannot be any way to censor the content as there are millions of users across the globe. The action came after the government warned the websites to block objectionable content a few months back.

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Google, Facebook objectionable content hearing moved to February 2

Nicholas — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 14:33:41 +0000

Asia Bizz: Search engine giant Google and social networking site Facebook are among many of the websites which have been dragged to court by the Indian government for derogatory content. For the time being, the websites can take a breather as the hearing of the case has been adjourned till February 2, 2012.

The petition has been adjourned by the Delhi High court after the websites approached the Higher court as their executives were challenged by the lower court by issuing summons. The ongoing fight involving the Government of India and the social networking sites has these days caught a lot of attention.

At least 21 websites, which include the popular ones like Google and Facebook have been sued by the government for posting objectionable content on their sites. A lower court had earlier called all the executives of all the 21 websites to appear before the court on March 13, 2012.

The websites, in their defense, stated that they were not responsible for the content and that the users were actually responsible for the alleged objectionable content. The companies even stated that there wasn’t any way that the content could be screened before it went live. Some of the websites even stated that the social networking sites were a good way to express the views of the individuals.

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Facebook’s new Timeline not liked by all users?

Nicholas — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 17:12:08 +0000

Asia Bizz: With the introduction of the new Timeline feature on the social networking site Facebook, not everyone is happy with the new feature. On the other hand, the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, said that the new Timeline is a new way to express who a person really is – which has sparked a debate on the site.

Many users now want their old ways to express themselves. The people who have adopted the new Timeline are unsatisfied and do not have a way to get back their old profile pages.

Not many people are aware that this can be done by accessing the page on the older versions of the Internet Explorer of Microsoft. As Facebook is phasing out support for the older browsers, the new Timeline will now be available on the older versions like the Internet Explorer 7 and 6.

The experience on the older browsers will be less optimal. Moreover, for users who are able to view their old profile, it does not mean that their friends will also view the same. The friends who are using the latest browser will be viewing the profile in the Timeline view, no matter what the user is seeing it as. Some of the users still use the older version of the Internet explorer. Google even announced that they will stop support for the older versions of the browsers.

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FIR against social networking site Facebook

Anita — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 12:19:20 +0000

Asia Bizz: An Indian social activist has recently filed an FIR against the popular social networking site Facebook. The FIR has been filed as the complainant alleged that the Facebook and a journalist asked the people to burn the Bhagwat Gita, which is considered as the Holy book for the Hindus in India.

The complaint has been logged by Nutan Thakur at the Gomti Nagar Police Station, under various sections of the IPC on December 25, 2011. Nutan has alleged that the journalist, who calls himself as the Editor in Chief of a Punjab daily newspaper, asked the people to burn the Bhagwat Gita.

According to the journalist, the scripture made derogatory references to women. The person who has filed the complaint is a resident of Jalandhar in the state of Punjab.

The complaint has been filed under the sections 153 A for imputations and assertions prejudicial to national integration, 153 B public nuisance, 153 for promoting enmity between different groups on the grounds of communities and other grounds, 290 for intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace, 504 criminal intimidation and 506 and 66 A A IT Act for using the Information Technology for these purposes. Such an incident has come up despite the warning given by Kapil Sibal to the social networks for filtering the content on the websites.