The Pacesetter Frontier Magazine

Category: Tech

  • Mainone provides details of internet disruption across Africa, says full internet restoration to take weeks

    Mainone provides details of internet disruption across Africa, says full internet restoration to take weeks

    The repair of the undersea cable cut that has affected internet services in Nigeria and many parts of sub-Saharan Africa may take about five weeks to be completed, MainOne said in a Friday statement.

    MainOne, whose facilities provide internet services to many parts of western and southern Africa, also provided details of the undersea cable cut and its efforts to repair it.

    In the statement on its website, the company said its “MainOne submarine cable carries a significant portion of the international traffic into West Africa and provides services to multiple countries hence the magnitude of the impact.”

    closeLogoThe company said it has a maintenance agreement with the “Atlantic Cable Maintenance and Repair Agreement (ACMA) to provide repair services for the submarine cable.”

    According to the service provider, the steps to be taken include first identifying and assigning a vessel to retrieve the necessary spares required for repair and then sailing to the fault location to conduct the repair work.

    It said that the next step to complete the repair involved the affected section of the submarine cable being pulled from the seabed onto the ship where skilled technicians would splice it.

    It said that post repair, joints would be inspected and tested for any defects and then the submarine cable lowered back to the seabed and guided to a good position.

    The data company also refuted claims that the disruptions may have been caused by humans or armed groups.

    It said most submarine cable faults occur as a result of human activities such as fishing and anchoring in shallow waters near shore, natural hazards such as earthquakes, landslides, and then equipment failure.

    “Given the distance from land, and the cable depth of about 3 kms at the point of fault, any kind of human activity – ship anchors, fishing, drilling etc has been immediately ruled out.

    “Our preliminary analysis would suggest some form of seismic activity on the seabed resulted in a break to the cable, but we will obtain more data when the cable is retrieved during the repair exercise,” the company said.

    MainOne, a digital infrastructure service provider, also declared a force majeure, which absolves it of contractual obligations to its customers in certain circumstances.

    It said that commercial contracts typically included such a force majeure clause which enabled service providers to suspend contractual obligations for the duration of such disruptions.

    A force majeure is an unforeseeable circumstance that prevents someone from fulfilling a contract.

    Many Nigerians including telecommunications companies and banks were on Thursday hit by an internet outage as a result of damage to international undersea cables supplying them with connectivity.

    According to the Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), the damage affects major undersea cables near Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire and is causing downtime across West and South African countries.

    The NCC said that the cuts occurred somewhere in Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal, with an attendant disruption in Portugal.

    In its statement, Mainone said it was working to restore services to as many of its customers as possible and to complete the repairs to the cable system as planned.

    It said that the cable cut had disrupted international services on its cable south of the landing in Senegal, resulting in the outage of internet services for the majority of its customers.

    The statement added that MainOne had some restoration agreements with other operators to mitigate service disruptions, but unfortunately, those cable systems were also impacted by outages at this time.

    “It is believed that MainOne submarine cable carries a significant portion of the international traffic into West Africa and provides services to multiple countries hence the magnitude of the impact.

    “We are actively restoring services to the extent possible and mobilising a vessel for repairs and will update once there are more details,” it said.

    The statement added that MainOne cable are very well protected as could be seen from the number of incidences on its cable system since its inception in 2010.

    NetBlocks, a global internet monitoring organisation, which released its preliminary report yesterday, disclosed that out of the 13 affected countries, Cote d’ Ivoire was the worst hit, which led to severe internet disruptions that brought the country’s internet connectivity to as low as four per cent.

    According to the report, Liberia, Benin Republic, Ghana and Burkina Faso suffered high internet impact that brought their internet connectivity to 20 per cent, 14 per cent, 25 per cent and 38 per cent respectively.

    The report stated that countries like Togo, Cameroon, Gabon, Namibia and Niger, suffered medium internet impact that brought their internet connectivity to 42 per cent, 58 per cent, 55 per cent, 55 per cent and 69 per cent respectively.

    It however stated that countries like Nigeria, Lesotho and South Africa, had low internet impact and businesses were mildly affected. While Nigeria had 72 per cent connectivity, Lesotho had 74 per cent internet connectivity, and South Africa had 82 per cent internet connectivity after the cable cut, according to the report.

    Premium Times/ThisDay

  • Nigerian Senate to Review Cybercrime Act 2015 as Online Losses Exceed $500 million

    Nigerian Senate to Review Cybercrime Act 2015 as Online Losses Exceed $500 million

    The Nigerian Senate has begun the process of reviewing and modifying the Cybercrime (Prohibition and Prevention) Act of 2015 with a view to taming cybercriminals and reducing the losses to online crimes estimated at over $500 million per year by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

    The Senate President Godswill Akpabio, during a recent public hearing on the Cybercrime (Prohibition and Prevention) Act (Amendment) Bill, 2023, in Abuja, described cybercrime as a serious threat.

    “In this day and age of rapid technological advancement and widespread internet use, cybercrime has emerged as a serious threat to our society, economy, and personal security.

    “It is necessary to reinforce existing laws prohibiting and preventing cyber-crime.

    “Individuals with ill intentions have already abused our lax cybercrime laws, harming our country’s name,” said the Senate president.

    Nigeria’s cybersecurity status has not been impressive. In a Check Point Research Threat Intelligence Report for Nigeria, which benchmarks the country’s cybersecurity status against a global median, the magnitude of cybercrime is frightening.

    Worldwide, the number of attacks experienced per business each week is 870 on average. Alarmingly, in Nigeria, this weekly figure is 2,308 across all industry sectors collectively. The more-granular per-industry analysis reveals this figure is higher still for businesses in the finance and banking sector.

     

    The Nigerian Communications Commission lists major cybercrimes in Nigeria to include hacking, identity theft, cyber terrorism, harassment, and internet fraud.

    Another recent report paints an alarming increase of cybercrimes against financial institutions, including fintech companies.

    The Senate wants the fangs of existing law expanded to tame online criminals, thus an urgent need for a comprehensive legal framework to deter, investigate, prosecute, and jail cybercriminals.

    Senator Akpabio who was represented at the event by leader of the Senate, Opeyemi Bamidele, explained that these crimes not only made the country suffer substantial financial losses, but eroded trust in Nigeria’s digital systems.

    “These cybercriminals are involved in a wide range of illegal activities, including hacking, identity theft, fraud, harassment, and cyber terrorism.

    “These crimes not only caused our country substantial financial losses, but they also invaded our privacy, crippled essential infrastructure, and eroded trust in our digital systems,”he noted.

    The chairman of the Senate Committee on ICT and Cyber Security, Senator Shuaib Salisu, and chairman of the Senate Committee on National Security and Intelligence, Senator Shehu Buba Umar, initiated the public hearing.

    VON

  • Elon Musk says X might charge users ‘small amount of money to combat vast armies of bots’

    Elon Musk says X might charge users ‘small amount of money to combat vast armies of bots’

    Elon Musk said X, formerly Twitter, could be rolling out a paywall to all its users.

    Musk says the move was critical to help deal with bots on the platform.

    The billionaire did not give specifics but said X would charge “just a small amount of money.

    “The single most important reason that we are moving to having a small monthly payment for the use of the X system, is it is the only way I could think of to combat vast armies of bots,” Musk said during a live stream on X with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.

    Musk told Netanyahu that having a payment system and prioritizing premium users’ posts would help minimize the influence of bots.

    “Because a bot costs a fraction of a penny, call it a tenth of a penny, but even if it has to pay a few dollars or something, some minor amount, the effective cost of bots is very high,” Musk said.

    Musk said he believes the paywall is critical if X is to deal with bots on the platform.

    “We are actually going to come up with a lower tier pricing. We want it to be just a small amount of money,” Musk said. “It’s a longer discussion but this is actually the only defense against armies of bots.”

    This isn’t the first time the billionaire has considered having a paywall for all X users.

    Musk had discussed the idea with one of his advisers, venture capitalist David Sacks, last year, according to a report from the tech newsletter Platformer.

    Musk has introduced a flurry of changes to the platform since he bought it in October 2022.

    Besides renaming Twitter to X, Musk replaced the platform’s legacy verified program — the blue ticks that verify the authenticity of famous personalities — with the Twitter Blue subscription program in March.

    The changes are part of Musk’s attempts to put the platform on a path toward profitability. In July, the billionaire said in an X post that the company was in a difficult financial position.

    “We’re still negative cash flow, due to ~50% drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load,” Musk said in his July post. “Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else.”

    Representatives for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider sent outside regular business hours.

    Kwan Wei Kevin Tan
  • About 500,000 Users already subscribed to 5G service -NCC

    About 500,000 Users already subscribed to 5G service -NCC

    The Fifth Generation (5G) services subscription has 500,000, says the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

    This is even as the commission is targeting 50 per cent broadband penetration before the end of 2023.

    The executive vice chairman, NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, disclosed this at a media chat with executive editors and media chiefs in the northern part of the country.

    Danbatta averred that broadband penetration, which stood at six per cent in 2015 has increased significantly to 47.01 per cent as of July, 2023, enhancing over 89.73 million subscriptions on 3G, 4G and 5G networks in the country; additionally, general internet subscriptions have reached 159.5 million up from less than 100 million in 2015.

    “The national target to achieve 70 per cent broadband penetration by 2025 is receiving renewed attention from NCC, which promises 50 per cent before the end of 2023. The Commission’s efforts to improve broadband penetration are yielding fruitful results with the current estimates as at July 2023 standing at 47.01 per cent,” Danbatta explained.

    Using the extant reviewed five-pillar Strategic Vision Plan as building block, the EVC spoke to 119 milestones achieved under the five strategic pillars, including regulatory excellence, universal broadband, market development, digital economy and strategic collaboration.

    Danbatta said, through effective implementation of NCC’s mandates under his leadership and cooperation of internal and external stakeholders since 2015, telecommunications industry in Nigeria has achieved remarkable milestones under his leadership.

    “While we acknowledge the challenges encountered by the industry, we have also witnessed explosive growth, improved regulatory standards, and digital innovations that have garnered global recognition,” he said.

    While reeling out impressive statistics that have characterised his leadership at NCC from 2015 to date, the EVC said active telephone subscribers had increased from less than 150.7 million to 218.9 million, representing a teledensity growth of 115.70 per cent from 107.87 per cent in 2015.

    Through stimulating broadband infrastructure across the country, Danbatta said, broadband penetration, which stood at 6 per cent in 2015 has increased significantly to 47.01 per cent as of July, 2023, enhancing over 89.73 million subscriptions on 3G, 4G and 5G networks in the country. Additionally, general Internet subscriptions have reached 159.5 million up from less than 100 million in 2015.

    “Also, from eight per cent contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2015, telecommunications sector now contributes 16 per cent quarterly to the Nigerian economy as of the second quarter of 2023. Besides, following the authorisation of more telecommunications companies to operate in Nigeria’s telecoms sector, the investments profile has increased tremendously from $38 billion in 2015 to $75 billion currently and this keeps growing daily. From the sales of Fifth Generation (5G) C-Band Spectrum, the NCC has generated over $847.8 million for the Federal Government,” he said.

    However, Danbatta said, while the industry still faces a number of challenges such as vandalism, securing equitable Right of Way (RoW) from governmental stakeholders, as well as multiple taxation and regulation, the commission has put framework in place to work with necessary stakeholders to overcome the obstacles posed by these challenges and to sustain the growth trajectory which has been the hallmark of telecoms sector as an enabler of socio-economic development in Nigeria.

    Leadership

  • [UPDATED] Investment potentials: NITDA sets up South East Zonal Office in Enugu

    [UPDATED] Investment potentials: NITDA sets up South East Zonal Office in Enugu

    …as state gov’t collaborates with agency on digital skills, ICT for youths

    In anticipation of Enugu State becoming a major investment hub in the country, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), has added to the growing number of corporate and multilateral institutions that have established presence in state in the past few months, taking advantage of the investment friendly disposition of Governor Peter Mbah, and the overall improved security in the state.

    Recall that shortly after the Enugu State Investment Roundtable which drew the attendance of international creditors, donor agencies, potential investors and foreign missions, the British High Commission in Nigeria, on Monday, September 11, announced the opening of its visa centre in Enugu on the request of the governor and other stakeholders interested in doing business in the state.

    The Director General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, disclosed on Wednesday that approval has been given by the agency to set up a regional office in Enugu State, stressing that the decision was inspired by the investment potentials in the state.

    The Director General, who was represented by the Director of Zonal Offices, Babajide Ajayi, said this during a courtesy visit to the governor, Dr. Peter Mbah, at the Enugu Government House on Wednesday, noted that the governor had repositioned the state as a destination for investment and business possibilities.

    The NITDA DG further revealed that their visit was necessitated by their desire to collaborate with the state in achieving its strategic objectives and vision, noting that the partnership would elevate the state in line with the governor’s mission and vision of making the state attractive for investors from different sectors across the globe.

    “We are here in Enugu State to look at how we can actually deepen our collaboration with the state government. We don’t want to just stay in abuja and do things in isolation. We want to work with the state government, we want to collaborate with you. We want to connect with the stakeholders in the state in the ecosystem, and we also want to share our strategic vision with the state and see how the state can also tap into our vision. In addition to this, we want to explain how we can further partner with the state and the ecosystem to drive digital economy.

    “We want to actually hear from them and see how we can move the state forward with regards to ICT,” he added.

    On his part, the Director, Corporate Planning and Strategy, Dr. Aristotle Onumo, commended Governor Mbah for the strategic steps his administration has been taking in the area of technology, maintaining that the decision to site the agency’s zonal office in the state was a milestone and result of the commitment the governor had shown in his effort to “engage and move Enugu State, especially young people to breathe and have something meaningful doing”.

    According to him, the responsibility of government was beyond job creation to engaging the people, lifting them out of the pit of poverty and improving the human capital index, adding that these responsibilities could not be achieved without collaboration.

    “It is on that note that we as an agency are keying in to that government programme of poverty alleviation, job creation, entrepreneurship and also supporting start-ups. And that is why we are here for this conversation with the Enugu State stakeholders and His Excellency the Governor particularly and also see how Enugu State Government will benefit from the agency’s programme. We have the focus and the goal to develop about 1 million talents to empower our youths. We want to engage the youths to leave criminality and crimes through digital economy,” he stressed.

    Reacting to the visit, Governor Mbah said the state was ready to collaborate with the agency on the training of youths in the state on digital skills, information and communication technology (ICT) which would make them self-reliant, create wealth for themselves and get others engaged.

    He said the state was already positioned to take advantage of the business-friendly environment which his administration had deliberately put in place such as derisking investment flow, harmonizing the land tenure system for investment, removing barriers and bottlenecks that could discourage investors and equip the youths as a viable workforce.

    The governor informed the agency of his government’s efforts to expose the youths to the emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, mechatronics, virtual reality, augmented reality, robotics, fintech and others, which are presently driving the global economy, stressing that the state would be glad to partner with the agency to achieve its objectives.

    “We recognise that a lot of the skill set that the youths have today may no longer be relevant to the emerging future. And this emerging future requires our young people to be upskilled digitally so that they can embrace the emerging possibilities it affords. So we know that the world is now moving into robotics, artificial intelligence, virtual reality and agumented reality,” he added.

    The governor, who appreciated the federal government for choosing Enugu for its regional headquarters, further said his administration would partner with NITDA to train and upskill a minimum of 40,000 youths in the state annually as a way of empowering them and ensuring they could become major players in the digital space.

    Speaking on the role of technology in phasing out the brick-and-mortar method of trading which was becoming old-fashioned, Mbah said plans were already being perfected to equip young ones in the state with fintech and cyber security skills to enable them integrate into the digital market, saying “we are going to equip them with the skills that allow them to do e-commerce so that they will be able to have their market base in the entire globe”.

    He stressed that the economy of the state would not only be driven by technology, it would help the administration achieve its strategic objectives of growing the economy seven-fold from $4.4 billion to $30 billion, and eradicate poverty from the nook and crannies of the state.

    “We are going to drive that growth with technology and not magic. The exponential growth projection can only come through technology. We have already started doing it. If you look at our governance structure, we have migrated our services to digital platform. Currently, we are digitising and we started with the 11 ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs), and we are looking at extending it to the 109 MDAs that we have in the state. We have already intervened in our land administration and management system. People are able to apply and obtain their certificate of occupancy within 72 hours. And when I say 72 hours, my team members will always interrupt and say ‘no, it’s 48 hours’. I don’t think there is any city in Africa where you can apply and get your certificate of occupancy in 72 hours,” the governor added.

  • FG calls for top Nigerian researchers to create National AI strategy

    FG calls for top Nigerian researchers to create National AI strategy

    The Federal Government, under the ministry of communications, innovation and digital economy, has called for applications from researchers of Nigerian descent from across the globe to help the country to create its National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy.

    Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr Bosun Tijani, announced this via X (Twitter), urging Nigerians to share details of any top researcher they know.

    In the document he shared titled: “Co-creating a National Artificial Intelligence Strategy for Nigeria,” Tijani said the government is building on existing work done by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to develop a National Al Strategy, hence, it is expanding its co-creation approach to engage and include top Al researchers of Nigerian descent globally.

    “We are curating a list of the top researchers of Nigerian descent from all over the world to join us in co-creating a National AI Strategy. The strategy will help shape our approach to building innovative tech solutions to our most pressing national problems.

    “If there are any researchers you know, Nigerian and non-Nigerian, who have done some work on the Nigerian market, please share in the comments,” he stated.

    Explaining the need for AI strategy for Nigeria, the minister said A has become a multi-purpose technology transforming production and service delivery, with the potential to significantly impact economic growth and social progress.

    According to him, recent research showed that Al could contribute up to $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, with $3 trillion from increased productivity and $9.1 trillion from new products and services (PwC, 2018).

    “The International Finance Corporation projects that the strategic adoption of Al could add up to $234 billion to Africa’s GDP by 2030. Nigeria in this loop is considered to have a fast-growing technology start-up ecosystem (having attracted 25 per cent of the $1.3 billion funding to African tech start-ups in 2021) and with proactive leadership, is well-positioned to leverage Al for economic diversification and inclusive growth. As an innovation leader on the African continent, Nigeria needs to develop a national strategy to harness the power of Al for sustainable development.

    “However, along with the opportunities, Al governance also poses some complex socio-technical challenges. As algorithms are deployed in high-stakes domains like healthcare, finance, and security, concerns are emerging around ethics, bias, transparency, job automation, and privacy. Both policymakers and researchers are of a consensus that a human-centred approach is essential to ensure Al systems are fair and accountable to all, across gender, ethnic and socioeconomic groups.

    “A National Al Strategy for Nigeria to responsibly steer the Al revolution towards achieving national goals around job creation, social inclusion, and sustainable development becomes imperative. With collaborative leadership, Nigeria seeks to pioneer ethical and inclusive Al innovation that improves welfare and expands opportunities for all its citizens,” it stated.

    Daily Trust

  • 13-year-old Nigerian boy, Joshua Agboola, emerges Africa’s youngest certified AWS developer associate

    13-year-old programmer Joshua Agboola
    Joshua Agboola

    A 13-year-old  programmer Joshua Agboola has emerged the youngest certified Amazon Web Services developer associate in Africa.

    Master Agboola achieved the feat after a gruelling two-hour examination that tested his skills and knowledge in deploying, troubleshooting, and development on the AWS cloud platform.

    Cloud services are infrastructure, platforms, or software that are hosted by third-party providers and made available to users through the internet.

    Master Agboola, in an interview in Lagos on Sunday said he was inspired to achieve the feat because of his outstanding performance in his AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner examination earlier in the year and encouragement by his father to sit the next level of certification.

    Master Agboola said though he had developed an interest in DevOps, the popular progression was to go for the Solutions Architect Associate certification.

    “I was initially preparing for the Solutions Architect Associate certification which is the next certification most people take in their AWS cloud journey, but had a change of mind for a tougher developer associate certification due to encouragement from an older friend programmer,” said the child. The light bulb went up in my head, and I began studying the next day.”

    Master Agboola added, ‘’The possibility of clinching the title of the youngest developer associate in the world, which is an equivalent of a world record in the cloud space, also became a strong motivation for me.”

    He prepared for the test by studying for about two to five hours daily for some six weeks.

    The 13-year-old internet sensation said his achievement in the cloud space was noticed by a tech company in Lagos offering to “provide me with further technical mentorship.”

    (NAN)

  • Elon Musk unveils new Twitter logo design, replacing iconic blue bird symbol

    Elon Musk unveils new Twitter logo design, replacing iconic blue bird symbol

    Twitter’s owner Elon Musk and its new CEO said Sunday that the social media network would ditch its bird logo, be rebranded with the name X and move quickly into payments, banking and commerce.

    Twitter new logo
    Twitter new logo

    Founded in 2006, Twitter takes its name from the sound of birds chattering, and it has used avian branding since its early days, when the company bought a stock symbol of a light blue bird for $15, according to the design website Creative Bloq.

    Tweeting a picture of the company’s new logo – a white X on a black background – late Sunday night, Twitter chief executive Linda Yaccarino said “X is here! Let’s do this.”

    Also late Sunday night, Musk changed his profile picture to the company’s new logo, which he described as “minimalist art deco,” and changed his Twitter bio to “X.com,” which now redirects to twitter.com.

    Musk had earlier tweeted that “If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make (it) go live worldwide tomorrow.”

    Musk also tweeted that under the site’s new identity, a post would be called “an X.”

    The changes were not visible on the website as of 0630 GMT Monday.

    Musk had already named Twitter’s parent company the X Corporation, and previously said his takeover of the social media giant was “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app” — a reference to the X.com company he founded in 1999, a later version of which went on to become payments giant PayPal.

    Such an app could still function as a social media platform, and also include messaging and mobile payments.

    “Powered by AI, X will connect us in ways we’re just beginning to imagine,” Yaccarino tweeted earlier on Sunday.

    Yaccarino, an advertising sales executive at NBCUniversal who Musk poached last month to become Twitter’s CEO, said the social media platform was on the cusp of broadening its scope.

    “X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities,” Yaccarino tweeted.

    New revenue streams
    Since Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion last October, the platform’s advertising business has partially collapsed as marketers soured on mass firings at the company that gutted content moderation — as well as on Musk’s management style.

    In response, the billionaire SpaceX boss has moved toward introducing payments and commerce through the platform in a search for new revenue.

    Twitter is thought to have around 200 million daily active users, but it has suffered repeated technical failures since the 52-year-old Tesla founder bought the app and sacked much of its staff.

    Since then, many users and advertisers alike have responded adversely to the social media site’s new charges for previously free services, its changes to content moderation and the return of previously banned right-wing accounts.

    Musk said this month that Twitter had lost roughly half of its advertising revenue since he took control in October.

    Facebook parent Meta also this month launched its own text-based platform, called Threads, which has up to 150 million users, according to some estimates.

    But the amount of time users spend on the rival app has plummeted in the weeks since its launch, according to data from market analysis firm Sensor Tower.

    AFP

  • Twitter Threatens To Sue Meta Over Rival Threads App

    Twitter Threatens To Sue Meta Over Rival Threads App

    Twitter threatened to sue Meta just hours after the Instagram parent company launched Threads, an app it hopes will beat out the struggling site owned by Elon Musk.

    This photo illustration created in Washington, DC, on July 5, 2023, shows the Twitter logo reflected near the logo for Threads, an Instagram app.(Photo by Stefani Reynolds / AFP)

    In a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, published by online news outlet Semafor on Thursday, Musk lawyer Alex Spiro accused the company of “unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property.”

    The letter accused Meta of hiring dozens of former Twitter employees who “had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information.”

    Threads is the biggest challenger yet to Musk-owned Twitter, which has seen a series of potential competitors emerge but not yet replace one of the world’s biggest social media platforms, despite its struggles.

    Zuckerberg’s latest move against Musk further heightened the rivalry between the two multibillionaires who have even agreed to meet for hand to hand combat in a cage match.

    And in his first tweet in over a decade, Zuckerberg posted a Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme in an apparent reference to the similarities between Threads and Twitter.

    Threads went live on Apple and Android app stores in 100 countries at 2300 GMT on Wednesday, and early feedback noted its close, but scaled back, resemblance to Twitter.

    Within a few hours, more than 30 million people had downloaded Threads, Zuckerberg said Thursday.

    “Feels like the beginning of something special, but we’ve got a lot of work ahead to build the app,” Zuckerberg wrote on his official Threads account Thursday.

    Accounts were already active for celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Shakira and Hugh Jackman, as well as media outlets including The Washington Post and The Economist.

    On Threads, Zuckerberg wrote: “It’ll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it.”

    Twitter has said it has more than 200 million daily users.

    Threads was introduced as a spin-off of Instagram, giving it a built-in audience of more than two billion users and sparing the new platform the challenge of starting from scratch.

    Instagram chief Adam Mosseri told users that Threads was intended to build “an open and friendly platform for conversations.”

    “The best thing you can do if you want that too is be kind,” he said.

    Zuckerberg is taking advantage of Musk’s chaotic ownership of Twitter to push out the new product, which Meta hopes will become the go-to platform for celebrities, companies and politicians.

    Analyst Jasmine Engberg from Insider Intelligence said Threads only needs one out of four Instagram monthly users “to make it as big as Twitter.”

    “Twitter users are desperate for an alternative, and Musk has given Zuckerberg an opening,” she added.

    Under Musk, Twitter has seen content moderation reduced to a minimum with glitches and rash decisions scaring away celebrities and major advertisers.

    He also fired more than half of Twitter’s staff, some of whom presumably went to other tech companies, including Meta.

    EU ‘Many Months’ Away

    Meta has its legion of critics too, especially in the major market of Europe, which could slow the growth of Threads.

    The company has been criticized for its handling of personal data, the essential ingredient for targeted ads that help it rake in billions of dollars in profits.

    Mosseri said he regretted that the launch was delayed in the European Union, but had Meta waited for regulatory clarity from Brussels, Threads would have been “many, many, many, months away.”

    According to a source close to the matter, Meta was wary of a new law called the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which sets strict rules for the world’s “gatekeeper” internet companies.

    One rule restricts platforms from moving user data between products, as would potentially be the case between Threads and Instagram.

    Globally, the Threads hashtag on Twitter has garnered three million tweets, with many users jokingly suggesting people will return to Musk’s platform.

    Others expressed privacy concerns.

    “Meta loves to collect private information and I don’t trust the way it treats private information,” a Japanese user tweeted.

    “I also have the impression that this is a company hated by EU, so I’m reluctant.”

    But some said they would permanently move to Threads.

    One Threads user wrote: “Now I truly can say goodbye to Twitter forever.”

    Channels TV

  • Artificial Intelligence Forces Twitter to Restrict Number of Posts Users Can Read

    Artificial Intelligence Forces Twitter to Restrict Number of Posts Users Can Read

    Elon Musk says Twitter will limit the number of posts users can see a day to limit ‘extreme levels’ of data scraping by AI companies

    Elon Musk said Twitter had to take “drastic and immediate” action to restrict access to tweets because AI companies were stealing its data.

    Elon Musk said forcing users to sign in to view tweets was a temporary measure.

    Elon Musk said Twitter users will have to temporarily sign in to view tweets to stop AI data scraping.

    Musk also said Twitter would place limits on the number of tweets people can read per day.

    He said “drastic and immediate action” was needed to curb the “extreme levels” of scraping.

    The Twitter CEO said Friday that the company would require users to sign in to view tweets, and would not allow tweet previews when links were shared with others. Then, on Saturday, Musk announced that Twitter will temporarily limit how many tweets users can read per day.

    Musk said both changes were meant to address “data scraping and system manipulation.”

    Hundreds of companies were “scraping Twitter data extremely aggressively,” Musk said on Friday, adding that social media companies without an authentication process were at risk of becoming “bot-strewn hellscapes.”

    Verified users, which are largely accounts subscribed to Musk’s troubled Twitter Blue program, will be able to read 6,000 posts per day, while unverified and newly created unverified accounts will be able to see just 600 and 300 posts per day, respectively, Musk said on Twitter.

    It’s unclear how Twitter will count a post as read, whether it will mean just scrolling past a tweet, or actually interacting with the tweet in some way. However, it appears that the change could be what caused thousands of users to have problems seeing new tweets on their feeds Saturday morning.

    The decision was met with confusion and seemingly, new motivation to seek out other platforms, as Elon, BlueSky, Jack Dorsey, Tumblr, Twitter Blue, Mastodon, and Hive were all trending Saturday afternoon.

    Musk tweeted Friday that the requirement to sign in would be “unlocked shortly” and that it was vital to take swift action to prevent the data scraping. He said Twitter had to fire up backup servers to cope with increased traffic on the site.”It is rather galling to have to bring large numbers of servers online on an emergency basis just to facilitate some AI startup’s outrageous valuation,” he said.The billionaire called for other solutions after Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney tweeted that Twitter was “account walled” and that browsing the site “feels horrible.”

    Musk replied by saying that the data scraping was affecting users’ experience. “What should we do to stop that? I’m open to ideas,” he asked. Sweeney suggested banning scraping in Twitter’s terms of service, protecting itself with infosec engineering, and taking legal action against companies commercially abusing the site on a large scale.

    Musk responded and said: “1. Scraping is already disallowed by T&C. 2. The scraping orgs dgaf & mask their IPs through proxy servers or through orgs that appear legit. For example, a recent massive scraping operation originating from Oracle IP addresses was just using their servers as a laundromat. 3. We absolutely will take legal action against those who stole our data & look forward seeing them in court, which is (optimistically) 2 to 3 years from now.” The SpaceX founder shut down OpenAI’s access to Twitter in December because he reportedly felt the company wasn’t paying enough for it to license the platform’s data, per The New York Times. OpenAI was paying about $2 million a year to scrape Twitter’s data to help build its AI chatbot, according to the report.Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

    Business Insider

  • Twitter Verification: Elon Musk appears to troll Twitter users who complain about being given blue check marks for free

    Twitter Verification: Elon Musk appears to troll Twitter users who complain about being given blue check marks for free

    Elon Musk is trolling Twitter users who either complain about getting blue check marks for free or back a campaign to block those who do pay for them.

    Elon Musk is giving out free blue check marks to some who complain about Twitter Blue.

    He gave them to some users who’ve been vocal about blocking others who now pay for verification.

    Lil Nas X and Bette Midler are among celebrities who have said they didn’t pay for Twitter Blue.

    Paul Krugman, an economist and columnist for The New York Times, tweeted Sunday that his blue check mark reappeared, but that he had “nothing to do with that,” and insisted he wasn’t paying for it. Musk replied to the tweet and shared a photo of a crying baby with a Twitter Blue check mark.

    The billionaire also appeared to make light of the situation by replying: “A troll, me??” when the account T(w)itter Daily News shared screenshots of users who’d backed the #BlockTheBlue campaign and received blue check marks for free.

    It comes after some Twitter users started a movement to encourage others to block accounts that pay for Twitter Blue by tweeting with the hashtag #BlockTheBlue. Twitter then started giving some of them free check marks.

    Matt Binder, a journalist at Mashable, was one of the users who got a free check mark after he wrote about the #BlockTheBlue campaign. Binder told Insider that Musk started handing them out when the push started “gaining steam.”

    “That’s the whole reason why Musk decided to start ‘gifting’ or really ‘shaming’ big accounts that had been vocal about Twitter removing all legacy verified accounts, only verifying people willing to pay Musk for the honor, and wanted to block these accounts,” he said.

    The reporter said that receiving the check mark was “proof” that the campaign was “getting to Musk.”

    “I’d say the vast majority of people blocking Twitter Blue subscribers are doing so as they come across them being annoying in their replies or in the mentions of others, and it’ll likely continue unabated,” Binder said. “However, I will say, I think this is the very first funny thing Elon Musk has ever done.”

    Celebrities including Lil Nas X and Bette Midler tweeted to announce that they hadn’t paid for Twitter Blue. “On my soul i didn’t pay for twitter blue, u will feel my wrath tesla man!” Lil Nas X wrote.

    Bette Midler said: “Yes, Elon gave me back my blue check but I didn’t pay for it. Does that make me a good guy or a bad guy? I’m so confused. So far only 400 people have signed on to get their checks back. Guess #Twitter’s going thru an ‘unscheduled disassembly’, too.”

    Twitter responded to a request for comment from Insider with an automated email that didn’t address the query.

    (Business Insider)

  • Twitter Blue: Micro Blogging Site Begins Removing Blue Checks from Users Who Don’t Pay

    Twitter Blue: Micro Blogging Site Begins Removing Blue Checks from Users Who Don’t Pay

    Many of Twitter’s high-profile users are losing the blue checks that helped verify their identity and distinguish them from impostors on the Elon Musk-owned social media platform.

    After several false starts, Twitter began making good on its promise Thursday to remove the blue checks from accounts that don’t pay a monthly fee to keep them. Twitter had about 300,000 verified users under the original blue-check system — many of them journalists, athletes and public figures. The checks — which used to mean the account was verified by Twitter to be who it says it is — began disappearing from these users’ profiles late morning Pacific Time.

    High-profile users who lost their blue checks Thursday included Beyoncé, Pope Francis, Oprah Winfrey and former President Donald Trump.

    The costs of keeping the marks range from $8 a month for individual web users to a starting price of $1,000 monthly to verify an organization, plus $50 monthly for each affiliate or employee account. Twitter does not verify the individual accounts, as was the case with the previous blue check doled out during the platform’s pre-Musk administration.

    Celebrity users, from basketball star LeBron James to author Stephen King and Star Trek’s William Shatner, have balked at joining — although on Thursday, all three had blue checks indicating that the account paid for verification.

    King, for one, said he hadn’t paid.

    “My Twitter account says I’ve subscribed to Twitter Blue. I haven’t. My Twitter account says I’ve given a phone number. I haven’t,” King tweeted Thursday. “Just so you know.”

    In a reply to King’s tweet, Musk said “You’re welcome namaste” and in another tweet he said he’s “paying for a few personally.” He later tweeted he was just paying for King, Shatner and James.

    Singer Dionne Warwick tweeted earlier in the week that the site’s verification system “is an absolute mess.”

    “The way Twitter is going anyone could be me now,” Warwick said. She had earlier vowed not to pay for Twitter Blue, saying the monthly fee “could (and will) be going toward my extra hot lattes.”

    On Thursday, Warwick lost her blue check (which is actually a white check mark in a blue background).

    For users who still had a blue check Thursday, a popup message indicated that the account “is verified because they are subscribed to Twitter Blue and verified their phone number.” Verifying a phone number simply means that the person has a phone number and they verified that they have access to it — it does not confirm the person’s identity.

    It wasn’t just celebrities and journalists who lost their blue checks Thursday. Many government agencies, nonprofits and public-service accounts around the world found themselves no longer verified, raising concerns that Twitter could lose its status as a platform for getting accurate, up-to-date information from authentic sources, including in emergencies.

    While Twitter offers gold checks for “verified organizations” and gray checks for government organizations and their affiliates, it’s not clear how the platform doles these out and they were not seen Thursday on many previously verified agency and public service accounts.

    The official Twitter account of the New York City government, which earlier had a blue check, tweeted on Thursday that “This is an authentic Twitter account representing the New York City Government. This is the only account for @NYCGov run by New York City government” in an attempt to clear up confusion.

    A newly created spoof account with 36 followers (also without a blue check), disagreed: “No, you’re not. THIS account is the only authentic Twitter account representing and run by the New York City Government.”

    Soon, another spoof account — purporting to be Pope Francis — weighed in too: “By the authority vested in me, Pope Francis, I declare @NYC_GOVERNMENT the official New York City Government. Peace be with you.”

    Fewer than 5% of legacy verified accounts appear to have paid to join Twitter Blue as of Thursday, according to an analysis by Travis Brown, a Berlin-based developer of software for tracking social media.

    Musk’s move has riled up some high-profile users and pleased some right-wing figures and Musk fans who thought the marks were unfair. But it is not an obvious money-maker for the social media platform that has long relied on advertising for most of its revenue.

    Digital intelligence platform Similarweb analyzed how many people signed up for Twitter Blue on their desktop computers and only detected 116,000 confirmed sign-ups last month, which at $8 or $11 per month does not represent a major revenue stream. The analysis did not count accounts bought via mobile apps.

    After buying San Francisco-based Twitter for $44 billion in October, Musk has been trying to boost the struggling platform’s revenue by pushing more people to pay for a premium subscription. But his move also reflects his assertion that the blue verification marks have become an undeserved or “corrupt” status symbol for elite personalities, news reporters and others granted verification for free by Twitter’s previous leadership.

    (Arise News)