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WhatsApp Starts Testing ‘Suspicious Link Detection’ Feature to Limit Spam Circulation: Report

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

WhatsApp Starts Testing 'Suspicious Link Detection' Feature to Limit Spam Circulation: Report

In another move to put a stop to the circulation of spam on its platform, WhatsApp is working on a Suspicious Link Detection feature. The new feature, which is presently said to be under testing, helps users detect suspicious links available within their WhatsApp messages. It is a part of the WhatsApp beta for Android version 2.18.204 and later, though not available for the masses at the initial stage. The latest development hits amidst different measures by the Facebook-owned company to limit the circulation of spam and fake news through the instant messaging app that has over 1.5 billion monthly active users worldwide. A previous WhatsApp beta version brought a ‘Forwarded’ label that was aimed to make a dent in the growth of fake news distribution through the app and help people easily identify forwarded messages.

Leveraging the Suspicious Link Detection feature, WhatsApp analyses the links available in a message to detect a suspicious link, reports WABetaInfo. The messaging app is said to automatically identify whether the link in a received message is redirecting to a fake or alternative website that could potentially harm users. Upon detection of a suspicious link, the message is marked with a Red-coloured label to let users easily understand its behaviour.

The screenshots posted by the WABetaInfo folks highlight that WhatsApp also warns users when they try to open the link with a message that reads, “This link contains unusual characters. It may be trying to appear as another site.” It has also been claimed that WhatsApp analyses the link locally. This suggests that the links will not be sent to WhatsApp servers and the user data won’t be compromised for sake of detecting suspicious links.

whatsapp suspicious link detection wabetainfo WhatsApp

We weren’t able to spot the reported Suspicious Link Detection feature on any of our Android devices using the latest WhatsApp beta version 2.18.207. However, since the WABetaInfo team claims that WhatsApp is currently testing the feature, we can expect its arrival at least for WhatsApp beta users sometime in the coming future. It is also reported that with some other improvements, the feature will also get an ability to let users manually report a suspicious link.

Earlier this month, WhatsApp came in the headlines for the massive spread of misinformation that allegedly led to the lynching of a large number of innocents in India. The IT ministry even asked WhatsApp to take preventative actions to restrict the proliferation of fake messages on its platform. The messaging service on its part revealed that it had started taking help from local experts to flight spam and fake news and announced ‘research awards’ for researchers interested in limiting the circulation of misinformative messages in the country. This was a step in addition to the primary moves such as the ‘Forwarded’ label and ‘Send Messages’ group controls to retain WhatsApp’s domination in the market of instant messaging apps. Particularly in India, WhatsApp serves over 200 million monthly active users.

[“source=gadgets.ndtv”]

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Internet

Funniest Desi Memes As Twitter Tests 280-Character Limit

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Funniest Desi Memes As Twitter Tests 280-Character Limit

Twitter has announced a test project increasing the character limit to 280.

Twitter just announced a test project allowing tweets to be expanded to 280 characters – double the 140 characters limit that initially made it the micro blogging website so popular. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. The hashtag ‘280 Characters’ has been the top trend on the website, and jokes making fun of the increase in character limit have made their way to Twitter. we compiled some of the funniest ones for you to see.

Here are the funniest reactions to Twitter’s new 280 characters limit:

Lots of desi memes made their way to Twitter

What do you think of the change? Let us know using the comments section below.
[“Source-ndtv”]
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News Update

Twitter Doubles Tweet Limit to 280 Characters for (Nearly) Everyone

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Twitter Doubles Tweet Limit to 280 Characters for (Nearly) Everyone

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Twitter made the announcement in a blog post and tweet on Tuesday
  • Twitter first started testing expanded tweet limit in early September
  • Twitter says the move will make it easier and faster to express yourself

Twitter announced Tuesday it has doubled the limit for tweets to 280 characters, a bid to draw in more users and boost engagement at the social network.

Giving users twice the space to voice their thoughts ushers in a new era for the online platform, whose hallmark 140-character cap had encouraged users to craft succinct missives.

“We’re expanding the character limit! We want it to be easier and faster for everyone to express themselves,” tweeted the site, which started testing an increase to its limit in most languages in early September.

The changes will be rolling out in all languages except Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, in which space limitations have not been an issue, Twitter said.

It is the first time the tweet character cap has been raised since Twitter was founded 11 years ago.

Twitter, which has been lagging behind rival social networks in user growth and struggling to reach profitability, faced a dilemma over the change in that it could alienate longtime users and transform the nature of the service.

Product manager Aliza Rosen said in a blog post that the test showed most people still used 140 characters or fewer, suggesting the fast-moving nature of Twitter will not change.

“Our goal was to make this possible while ensuring we keep the speed and brevity that makes Twitter, Twitter,” Rosen said. “We’re excited to share we’ve achieved this goal and are rolling the change out to all languages where cramming was an issue.”

Brevity endures
Rosen noted that in the first few days of the test many people used the full 280-limit because it was new and novel, “but soon after behavior normalized.”

As a result, “the brevity of Twitter remained,” she said.

While Twitter itself changed the way people communicate in the internet age, doubling the tweet character limit promised to shift it once again, according to Jennifer Grygiel, an assistant professor of communications at Syracuse University.

“It will slow down the speed at which users consume information and will allow for more clarity,” Grygiel said.

“This might not be a bad thing during a time when world leaders are making military threats via the platform.”

US President Donald Trump favors the platform for making major policy announcements, as well as criticizing allies, taunting opponents and threatening North Korea with destruction.

He sent his inaugural 280-tweet while on South Korea as part of his Asia tour: “Getting ready to make a major speech to the National Assembly here in South Korea, then will be headed to China where I very much look forward to meeting with President Xi who is just off his great political victory.”

Glances and Likes
Some users have worried that longer tweets could profoundly change the nature of the one-to-many messaging platform, which is popular with journalists and politicians but has failed to win the mass appeal of rivals like Facebook.

There was also worry that raising the character cap would give blowhards and abusers more room to spout.

“I will gladly give up my extra 140 characters if Twitter will delete Trump’s account,” author and civil rights commentator DaShanne Stokes said in a tweet fired off from @dashannestokes.

Stokes said Twitter’s move gives Trump “a bigger weapon with which to hurt more people.”

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 Trump.

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone said that longer test tweets got tended to prompt more engagement by others using the service.

“In addition to more Tweeting, people who had 280 characters received more Likes, Retweets, @mentions, Followers, and were more satisfied with Twitter. So, you’ll be getting 280 too — enjoy!” Stone tweeted.

Some analysts maintain longer tweets are not the fix Twitter needs, and may even change the appealing ability to take in messages with glances.

It also risks Twitter looking a bit more like Facebook, one analyst contended, and might prompt the leading online social network to respond to what it might see as a competitive threat.

Meanwhile, many users 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 “tweet storms,” to string together lengthy comment.

Last month, Twitter reported its loss for the past quarter narrowed as the company suggested it could reach profitability for the first time in the fourth quarter.

The update showed Twitter’s monthly active user base rose slightly to 330 million, roughly in line with forecasts.

For the biggest CES 2018 stories and latest updates, visit our CES hub.

[“Source-ndtv”]

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Internet

Twitter’s Testing a 280-Character Limit for Tweets

by Loknath Das
written by Loknath Das

Twitter's Testing a 280-Character Limit for Tweets

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Jack Dorsey last year said the 140-character count would stay
  • Twitter is testing a feature allowing users double the character amount
  • The 280-character limit will only be available to a small group of people

Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey last year made a definitive announcement about the company’s famous 140-character count amid rumors that the firm would substantially relax the limit. “It’s staying,” Dorsey told the “Today” show’s Matt Lauer. “It’s a good constraint for us.”

On Tuesday, the company took it back – for some people, at least.

Starting Tuesday, Twitter said, it’s testing a feature to let some users double the amount of characters allowed in a tweet. The 280-character limit will only be available to a small group of people on the site. When asked for more information, Twitter said it would be a “single-digit percentage” of its 328 million users – so, millions – who will be “randomly chosen.”

The company declined to comment directly on how it’s choosing those people or why it changed its mind about sticking to its 140-character limit. But in a company blog post, product manager Aliza Rosen and senior software engineer Ikuhiro Ihara said the team started looking into the restrictions of the 140-character limit after noticing differences among languages.

Some languages – specifically Chinese, Japanese and Korean – allow for greater expression in fewer characters, Rosen and Ihara said.

“We see that a small percent of tweets sent in Japanese have 140 characters (only 0.4%). But in English, a much higher percentage of tweets have 140 characters (9%). Most Japanese tweets are 15 characters while most English tweets are 34,” the post said.

The 280-character test will roll out in all languages except for Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

It’s true that some languages allow each character to count for more. My own last name, Tsukayama, is nine letters in English; phonetically in Japanese, it’s four letters. If you use Japanese kanji characters, it’s three.

But Twitter users in other languages have found workarounds to bypass the 140-character limit. It’s common to see someone send out a thread, or “Twitterstorm,” by signaling that their thoughts are going to come in several bite-sized chunks – i.e., typing 1/6 to note the first installment of six related tweets. Twitter itself did this Tuesday morning, when addressing why it hasn’t suspended President Donald Trump from its platform.

Dorsey himself has used a common workaround – posting an image of longer text – to get around the character limit, even while extolling the virtues of brevity early last year.

It’s surprising that Twitter would revisit such an integral part of its network, especially after definitively stating the 140-character limit would remain. And, judging by the post, the company clearly expects some backlash (perhaps after seeing the reaction to the rumors Dorsey felt compelled to address on the “Today” show).

“Although we feel confident about our data and the positive impact this change will have, we want to try it out with a small group of people before we make a decision to launch to everyone,” the blog post said. “We understand since many of you have been tweeting for years, there may be an emotional attachment to 140 characters – we felt it, too. But we tried this, saw the power of what it will do, and fell in love with this new, still brief, constraint.”

Despite the big announcement, Twitter is being pretty quiet about how this will look to the everyday Twitter user – how likely they are to see the feature on their own accounts, the accounts of others in their timeline, or perhaps in the hands of a certain tweeter-in-chief.

But one thing that’s telling: Rosen and Ihara said that “in all markets, when people don’t have to cram their thoughts into 140 characters and actually have some to spare, we see more people tweeting – which is awesome!”

In other words, Twitter has found that removing this pain point – even if it means giving up something that’s been core to its identity – can help it reach more people who will then use its product more. And, ultimately, that’s what Twitter has been seeking for years: a way to gain more users and to make its quirky ways easier to understand.

Year by year, the social networking site has made changes to improve its usability, including tweaking the way timelines work, as well as modifying its rules to prevent images, videos and GIFs from counting against the number of characters in a tweet. Not all of those changes have been welcomed by its most devoted users; Twitter has also reversed policy due to user complaints. With this test, Twitter is evolving once more in its pursuit of new users. It’s the company’s biggest step away from its past yet.

[“Source-gadgets.ndtv”]

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