Twitter may face govt axe in India

Twitter might face legal action if the popular microblogging site does not comply with Indian government's demand to censor objectionable content posted by its users. 

Stung by the misinformation campaign thatspread like wildfire through SMS, Facebook,YouTube and Twitter in past weeks, the Indian government now seems to be moving ahead with its initial threat to tighten the noose around social media. 

Indicating this, a senior government official has said that Twitter has already been told that legal action may be taken against it as it had failed to cooperate with the Indian government in its efforts to find the source of and curtail the inflammatory messages against north-east citizens.

India’s web culture is all about Facebook, social networking

ComScore, has just released some interesting data on how India’s digital citizens are spending time online. The report states that  social networking accounted for 25.2 percent of all time spent online in June. The biggest beneficiary of the social networking boom in India is, of course, Facebook.

The report also states that Indians spend nearly 1 out 4 minutes online indulging in social networking, amounting to a significant 25.2 percent of total time spent online.

Other content that occupies a significant amount of time for Indians is

• Entertainment sites – accounting for 10 percent of minutes (up 1.2 percentage points from the previous year).

• Portals accounted for 8.8 percent of total minutes.

• Time spent on Retail sites grew 0.5 points in the past year to a total of 2.0 percent of total minutes.

So which are the top used sites by Indians?

Google and other sites run by the search-engine ranked as the top destination in June 2012 reaching nearly 95 percent of the online population, or roughly 57.8 million people aged 15 and older

Facebook came in second followed with 50.9 million visitors (83.4 percent reach),

Yahoo! Sites (65.5 percent reach) and Microsoft Sites (48.1 percent reach) are next on the list.

So what does this web survey reveal about India?

The first is the tremendous rise of social networking among Indians. The second is of course the rise of Facebook. All of this is particularly noteworthy data, coming as it does at a time when the government is blaming social media aiding in the spread of rumours against North-eastern people, which led to a mass exodus of these people from various South Indian cities.

The government has alleged that Facebook, YouTube, etc were used to upload inflammatory content that led to the mass hysteria. The latest exodus is also being used by the government to bolster its argument that social networking sites ought to pre-screen content before it is uploaded.

Facebook and YouTube have added that the content was uploaded from Pakistan and have admitted that it was indeed incendiary in nature.

There’s no doubt that censorship of the web will now become a hotly contested issue with the government using the North-east as a classic example of how social media was misused.

But the larger question is that whether Indians who are evidently addicted to social networking would be okay with their online rights being curbed. Most would be uncomfortable with any sort of censorship. As far as users are concerned, the government seems to be displaying a blithe ignorance of how effective and useful social media can be.

In case of bomb attacks and accidents,  people very often turn to social media such as Twitter or Facebook,  to get more information or even reach out to those who have been affected. In July 2011 in Mumbai for instance, the Indian Twitter community took it upon themselves to offer rides and other assistance to those stranded as a result of a series of bomb explosions in the city.

Social media has also become a very effective tool of criticising the government.

For India’s online citizens, who are only over a  100 million or so in number, the battles are going to get tougher with the government arguing for more control. There’s no doubt that as far as social media concerned nobody is willing to budge an inch, neither the users nor the government.

Source-Firstpost

80 Internet Sites including Facebook, Google and Twitter accounts to be banned for inflammatory content

The Government has reportedly ordered 80 or more Internet pages and user-accounts on social networking sites including Facebook, Google and Twitter to be banned to avoid panic among people of the North-Eastern region living across India.

All these sites were found hosting inflammatory and hateful content, spreading rumours and inciting violence targeting the people from the North-East, government sources said.

Yesterday, the government had issued instructions to block 76 Internet sites, which included web-pages and some websites, and had said that bulk of the rumours that triggered panic among people of North-eastern states in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra were sourced from Pakistan.

Facebook, Twitter to be shut in India? North-East exodus

Aug 17: It seems that the central and state governments' appeal to North East people not to leave Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune and other cities fell on deaf ears. The exodus of North Eastern people continue to leave for their home states, despite assurances. Amid the grave situation, many have started demanding to shutdown social networking sites in the country for some time to prevent the spreading of such rumours.

Joining Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil, a Samajwadi Party MP, Ramgopal Yadav also stated in Rajya Sabha that social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter should be closed for a few days to prevent the spreading of rumours that are prompting thousands of Northeastern students and people to flee to their home.

The MP along with many other officials believe that social networking sites were being misused to spread rumours on ethnic clashes between the Bodos and Muslims in Assam.

Earlier, Mr Patil was quoted as saying, "We are requesting the central government in helping shut down social networking sites found involved in spreading rumours."

"I have asked police to set aside routine work if need be and concentrate on providing security to people from North East who live in Maharashtra," added Mr Patil.

According to rumours, some unidentified group allegedly circulated some SMSs and emails threatening North-East people to leave the cities before Ramazan. They allegedly have been threatened of attack in metro cities.

Here arises a question for the government and other officials who have been urging to shutdown the social networking sites in the country - can such move really assure the safety of people from North-East who have so far been neglected in their own country?

Mass exodus continued for the second straight day on Friday with three more packed trains leaving for Guwahati. There was a commotion in the Bangalore railway stations with police trying hard to pacify the North Eastern citizens.

Similar kind of hullabaloo was seen in Hyderabad, Chennai and Mysore as well. However, assuring about their security, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday stated, "At all cost we will ensure peace and harmony in the country. We would like all state governments to work with local communities to this effect." Source-Oneindia

Nairita  Friday, August 17, 2012, 14:18 [IST  

Apple responds to journalist's iCloud hack

After a reporter said account breaches occurred when an AppleCare technician fell prey to social engineering, the tech giant says, "our own internal policies were not followed completely."

After former Gizmodo reporter Mat Honan's entire digital presence was hacked via a loophole in AppleCare, Apple now says it is looking into how users can reset their account passwords to ensure that their data is protected.

It all began when Honan took to his Tumblr blog on Friday, detailing the events that led to his online life being sabotaged -- with his Google and Twitter accounts being deleted and his MacBook, iPad, and iPhone being wiped clean. He blamed an AppleCare technician for allowing his accounts to be hacked, as well as the tech blog's official feed.

After deliberating over the ways it could have happened on his blog, Honan heard back from Apple.

"Apple takes customer privacy seriously and requires multiple forms of verification before resetting an Apple ID password," Apple spokesperson Natalie Kerris told Wired, where Honan now works. "In this particular case, the customer's data was compromised by a person who had acquired personal information about the customer. In addition, we found that our own internal policies were not followed completely. We are reviewing all of our processes for resetting account passwords to ensure our customers' data is protected."

Journalist blames Apple tech for allowing iCloud hack

Former Gizmodo reporter says device wipes and Twitter breaches occurred after an 

AppleCare technician fell victim to a bit of social engineering.

Former Gizmodo reporter Mat Honan is blaming an AppleCare technician for allowing his 

personal e-mail and Twitter accounts to be hacked, as well as the tech blog's official feed.


The Gizmodo breach, apparently perpetrated by a person or group of people calling 

themselves Clan W3, was brief but resulted in racist and offensive tweets being sent to 

the tech blog's 415,000 followers on Friday. Gizmodo initially blamed its former reporter

 for the tweets and quickly regained control of its account.

But Honan, who currently works for Wired, was not so fortunate. He described in a 

blog posthow he had learned his iCloud account had been breached by a hacker who

 wiped his devices and gained access to his Gmail and Twitter accounts. Now he says

 an Apple technician fell victim to social engineering, a technique of manipulating people

 instead of computers to perform a task or divulge information: