Twitter, Facebook - Current Affairs Questions and Answers

ANSWER: Facebook

Explanation:
Social media site Facebook is collaborating with the Election Commission of India in 5 states going to polls next year to run a voter registration drive to encourage youth to participate in the democratic process.

• FB is partnering ECI and office of Chief Electoral Officers in UP, Goa, Punjab, Manipur and Uttarakhand
• Close to 155 million Indians are on FB
• The register to vote button is designed to encourage citizens to exercise their votes in the coming elections
• From Oct 6 to 9, FB users in Goa, Punjab, UP, Manipur and Uttarakhand who are 18 or above will receive a News Feed reminder to register for the vote
• Clicking on the register now button will direct people to the National Voters’ Services Portal which in turn will guide them towards the registration process
• Feature will be available at the following dates:
• Oct 6: Punjab
• Oct 7: Manipur
• Oct 8: UP and Uttarakhand
• Oct 9: Goa
• The page will disseminate election related information and develop a live interaction platform in the near future

ANSWER: Facebook

Explanation:

• Social networking giant Facebook has introduced tools and educational resources to help people in India who may be struggling with self-injury or experiencing suicidal thoughts. These tools are already available in countries like the US, Australia, New Zealand and the UK.
• Vulnerable users will then be encouraged to connect to the AASRA India helpline or the Live Love Laugh Foundation or a friend or seek self-help advice from resources and tips provided on how they can work through these feelings.
• Facebook has also introduced 'Help a Friend in Need' guide to help people identify when someone is distressed and what steps to take to get help. The guide also offers suggestions on how to approach their friend, what to say, how to react and what to avoid.
• It gives people the skills to reach out without fear of making the situation worse. The guide will be available in English, Hindi, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, Sinhalese, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and Marathi.

ANSWER: Disaster Response Summit

Explanation:
Facebook Inc. rolled out Disaster Maps for India to help communities across the country recover and rebuild from natural disasters faster by sharing critical pieces of data sets with humanitarian agencies in a timely manner.

The new product was launched at the company's first Disaster Response Summit in India along with the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to improve disaster response and disaster management in India.

According to United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) data, India is the third-worst affected country by natural disasters like floods, earthquakes, landslides, cyclones and drought.

Moreover, the response time during and after these crises is often slow and it takes significant time and resources to understand where help is needed most.

Disaster Maps, powered by Facebook's technology and intensive research, will address this critical gap in data that government organizations face when responding to a crisis.

Disaster Maps, which was introduced globally in June, uses aggregated, de-identified Facebook data to help organizations address the critical gap in information they often face when responding to natural disasters.

Facebook provides multiple types of maps during disaster response efforts, which include aggregated location information people have chosen to share with Facebook.

This helps NGOs and relief agencies get a clearer picture of where affected people are located so they can determine where resources-like food, water and medical supplies-are needed.

Types of Facebook Maps

Facebook researchers have built three kinds of maps:

• Location density maps: These show where people are located before, during and after a disaster. We can compare this information to historical records, like population estimates based on satellite images.
  Comparing these data sets can help response organizations understand areas impacted by a natural disaster.
• Movement maps: These illustrate patterns of movement between different neighbourhoods or cities over a period of several hours.
  By understanding these patterns, response organizations can better predict where resources will be needed, gain insight into patterns of evacuation, or predict where traffic will be most congested.
• Safety Check: These maps are based on locations where our community uses Safety Check to notify their friends and family that they are safe during a disaster.
  We are using this de-identified data in aggregate to show where more or fewer people check in safe, which may help organizations understand where people are most vulnerable and where help is needed.

• While globally Facebook has partnered with organizations like the Red Cross, in India, initially it will join hands with two organizations: the NDMA and SEEDS (Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society).
• Facebook has 2 billion-plus users globally and according to a media report, its users in India have crossed the 240 million mark, making it the largest audience country for the social media company.
• Facebook has developed a number of crisis response tools.
• It activated the Safety Check feature in 2014 and launched Community Help in 2015, which allows the Facebook community to find and give help such as food, shelter and transportation.

ANSWER: 280

Explanation:
Twitter is testing allowing tweets to be expanded to 280 characters - double the existing limit - in the latest effort to boost flagging growth at the social network.

San Francisco-based Twitter said on 26th Sept 2017 that the new limit, a major shift for the messaging platform known for its 140-character tweets, aims to address “a major cause of frustration” for many users.

Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey fired off what may be one of the first expanded tweets.

“This is a small change, but a big move for us,” he wrote, calling the previous limit was an “arbitrary choice”.

Twitter planned to leave the old limit in place for tweets in Japanese, Chinese and Korean because internal data showed written characters in those languages packed plenty into the allotted space.

Twitter, which became a public company in 2013, has never reported a profit, even though it has built a loyal base of celebrities, journalists and political figures, including prolific tweeter US President Donald Trump.

In its most recent quarter, Twitter reported its base of monthly active users was unchanged at 328 million compared to the first three months of the year and up just five percent from a year earlier.

Its growth has failed to keep pace with social network leader Facebook, which has some two billion users, and Facebook-owned Instagram, with 800 million.

Twitter has been seeking to draw in users by offering more video, including live streaming of sporting events, aiming to broaden its appeal.

Reaction on Twitter was mixed, with some lobbying for the original cap and the pressure it applied to succinctly express thoughts.

Many others on Twitter welcomed the news and said raising the character cap was long overdue.

Some people already resort to long strings of rapid-fire tweets, known as “Twitter storms,” to string together lengthy comment.

The messaging platform reported a net loss of $116 million in the second quarter, slightly wider than its $107 million loss a year ago.

It remained an open question whether the new tweet limit would ignite the growth an engagement Twitter needs to compete in the fast-moving social media segment.

The move by Twitter could also be rendered moot by lifestyle changes brought about by trends in voice-commanded digital assistants and looking at the world through mixed-reality glasses, according to Gartner analysts.

ANSWER: Facebook

Explanation:
Social media giant Facebook will monitor the growth of the MSMEs in Odisha after imparting training to them in next one year.

The social networking giant has partnered the Odisha’s MSME department and Project Mission Shakti to train 25,000 entrepreneurs by the end of 2018.

The state government has plans to organise hands-on workshops for MSME entrepreneurs and women SHGs on 'Digital Marketing Skills'.
Facebook will prepare a data base through registrations in which they will take the email ids and mobile numbers of entrepreneurs in all the workshops.

After sometime either through personal conversations or through email, they can find out what is the difference Facebook has made in the business turnover or profits.

Facebook launched its SheMeansBusiness programme in Bhubaneswar, which was attended by about 1,100 women entrepreneurs of the state. The programme of Facebook is launched in 16 countries around the world including India.

It is designed to reach out to aspiring and established women entrepreneurs to help them build and grow their business online.
As per Facebook, it is the largest congregation globally under SheMeansBusiness programme.

More than 150 entrepreneurs today created their pages and uploaded their products on their profile.

CM Naveen Patnaik stressed on the use of the three Ts - technology, teamwork and transparency - to bring about transformation in the lives of people.

This is amply demonstrated today in the partnership of the government with Facebook - a partnership aimed to reduce the digital divide and empower nearly 25,000 entrepreneurs and SHGs over the next one year.

ANSWER: Bharat Ke Veer

Explanation:
The Union Home Minister Shri Rajnath Singh launched the live twitter wall for promoting Bharat Ke Veer portal on the eve of Independence Day 2017.

On this occasion, Shri Rajnath Singh and Ministers of State for Home Affairs Shri Hansraj Gangaram Ahir and Shri Kiren Rijiju contributed their one month salary for Bharat Ke Veer.

Shri Rajnath Singh said that the Security Forces have made supreme sacrifice in the line of duty and the people need to stand by their families to support them.

This social media awareness campaign will display all tweets with hashtag Bharat Ke Veer (#BharatKeVeer), at Connaught Place, CGO complex and Khan Market in New Delhi where huge LED display screens have been installed.

Emoji has also been created for this hashtag.

Union Home Secretary Shri Rajiv Mehrishi, OSD Shri Rajiv Gauba and Senior Officers of MHA were present on this occasion.

Bharat Ke Veer portal was launched by the Union Home Minister and actor Shri Akshay Kumar on April 9, 2017.

This portal facilitates online donation directly to the families of CAPF Martyrs who have sacrificed their lives for the country in line of duty from January 1, 2016.

ANSWER: Rachel Whetstone

Explanation:
Facebook has hired Uber’s former top public relations executive as vice-president of communications for its multiple platforms like Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.

Rachel Whetstone, who has worked for some of the Britain’s most powerful Conservative politicians, stepped down as head of public policy and communications at Uber in April following a string of corporate scandals.

Whetstone in her new role at Facebook will oversee communications for Instagram and WhatsApp, which are both owned by Facebook.

Whetstone worked at Google as the head of communications and public policy prior to Uber.

Whetstone left Uber earlier this year amid a number of public relations crises after a former employee’s accusation of sexual harassment stirred a major controversy, surrounding claims of rampant sexism and discrimination within the company.

Ms. Whetstone has not commented on the scandals since she left Uber.

She is a friend of David Cameron and George Osborne.

She served as Howard’s political secretary and was a major player in Conservative politics when the party was up against Tony Blair’s Labour government.

ANSWER: Aliza Knox

Explanation:
In a yet another blow for the struggling micro-blogging website Twitter, its head of Asia-Pacific business Aliza Knox has decided to move on after a near-five year stint.

Knox built out Twitter's presence in Asia with an office in Singapore that currently spans nine locations with over 100 people on payroll.

Her exit comes on the back of the loss of a number of high-profile Asia-based executives in 2016.

This includes Managing Director for Southeast Asia, India, Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region Parminder Singh, India head Rishi Jaitly, China head Kathy Chen and Australia country boss Karen Stocks.

Jaitly drove strategic partnerships with the news, government, entertainment, sports, TV industries, and others in the mass and emerging media landscape.

Jaitly was the vice-president of Twitter's Asia Pacific and Middle East business.

After Jaitly, Singh announced that he has quit the company.

Following this, the micro-blogging website appointed Maya Hari as its new Managing Director for South East Asia and India who was reporting to Knox.

In a bid to realign its future goals and cut costs, Twitter had reduced nine per cent of its workforce (nearly 350 people) internationally.

In 2016, Twitter cut 300 jobs after Jack Dorsey took over as CEO full-time.

ANSWER: Twitter

Explanation:
To celebrate International Women's Day, Twitter is enabling users across India to spotlight the women who inspire them with the hashtags #SheInspiresMe or #SheLeadsIndia.

These hashtags will trigger a #WomensDay emoji.

The emoji would be the gender symbol for females and a representation of feminism and will be available till April 1.

Twitter has also partnered with digital video storytelling platform @SheThePeopleTV, to host a special #BlueRoom session to talk about the issues women in media and technology face.

The session would be live on March 8 at 5:30 p.m. from both @TwitterIndia and @SheThePeopleTV handles, the statement added.

ANSWER: Hugo Barra

Explanation:
Hugo Barra, vice-president at Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is to join Facebook.

He will lead the company’s virtual reality efforts, including the Oculus VR team as per the CEO of the social networking giant Mark Zuckerberg.

Barra, who has also worked with Google previously, had announced his exit from Xiaomi.

He indicated that he wanted to return to Silicon Valley.

Barra said it had been his dream to work in virtual reality.

In a separate post on his profile, Mr. Barra said he was returning to Silicon Valley in a couple of months and will be joining Facebook as VP of virtual reality (VPVR) and lead the Oculus team.

Mr. Barra was instrumental in Xiaomi expanding outside of its home market to geographies such as India, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia.

More recently, under his efforts Xiaomi expanded to 20 other markets, including Russia, Mexico, and Poland.

The top job at Oculus has been vacant since 2016, when its CEO Brendan Iribe stepped down to run one of the other divisions.

Facebook had acquired Oculus in 2014.

Oculus: Know More

• CEO: Brendan Iribe (since 2012)
• Founded: 2012, Irvine, California, United States
• Headquarters: Menlo Park
• Acquisition date: March 25, 2014
• Founders: Brendan Iribe, Palmer Luckey
• Parent organization: Facebook, Inc.