Google to invest Rs 33,737 crore for 7.73% stake in Jio Platforms

The two companies will collaborate for the development of entry-level affordable 4G and 5G smartphones as well as Android-based operating systems, Ambani announced during the virtual AGM.

Reliance Industries (RIL) Chairman Mukesh Ambani on Wednesday announced a strategic partnership with Google and development of in-house 5G solutions, in a bid to win over new customers and create a platform for future growth.

Google will invest Rs 33,737 crore for 7.73 per cent stake in Jio Platforms. The two companies will collaborate for the development of entry-level affordable 4G and 5G smartphones as well as Android-based operating systems, Ambani announced during the virtual annual general meeting (AGM).

“Our investment of $4.5 billion in Jio is the first — and biggest — that we will make through this ($10 billion) fund. I am excited that our collaboration will focus on increasing access for hundreds of millions of Indians who don’t own a smartphone, while improving the mobile experience for all at the same time,” said Google CEO Sundar Pichai in a video message.

With the latest investment, Jio has raised Rs 1.52 trillion, selling 32.97 per cent stake to 14 investors including Facebook, private equity (PE) firms and sovereign wealth funds in the process.

While the investments from PE firms and wealth funds were made at a valuation of Rs 4.91 trillion, Google’s stake purchase values Jio at Rs 4.36 trillion.

Jio disrupted the telecom market with its ultra-cheap data plans after its launch in 2016, and is now preparing for the next level of growth. Its strategy includes acquiring 300 million 2G network users by offering them affordable phones and launching new products for connectivity and entertainment. At the AGM, RIL announced Jio Glass, a mixed reality application for office meetings and education.

Google is in advanced talks to invest $4 billion in Jio Platforms

Global tech leaders from Facebook to Intel are looking for multiple ways to grab a slice of the action in the South Asian country, where millions of first-time internet users are added every month.

Google is in advanced talks to buy a $4 billion stake in Mukesh Ambani’s technology venture, people familiar with the matter said, seeking to join rival Facebook in the chase for growth in a promising internet market.

The Mountain View, California-based titan has been discussing the investment in Reliance Industries’ digital arm, Jio Platforms, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. An announcement could come as soon as the next few weeks, according to the people.

Jio is at the centre of the Indian tycoon’s ambition to transform his energy conglomerate into a homegrown technology behemoth — something on the lines of China’s Alibaba Group Holding. The venture has turned into a magnet for Silicon Valley investors, attracting almost $16 billion from Facebook to KKR & Co. in the past three months. Should the talks with Google result in a deal, that would further burnish Jio’s credentials in its push to upend online retail, content streaming, digital payments, education and health care in a market of more than a billion people.

Global tech leaders from Facebook to Intel Corp. are looking for multiple ways to grab a slice of the action in the South Asian country, where millions of first-time internet users are added every month. Jio Platforms, which boasts almost 400 million users through its wireless network, offers the largest base of such users who are increasingly buying merchandise online and downloading music and video, using cheap phones and Jio’s own cut-price data services. An arm of Qualcomm Inc. was the latest in Jio’s growing list of investors, who also include Intel Capital, Silver Lake and Mubadala Investment. As of July 12, Reliance had sold 25.2 per cent of Jio, valuing the venture at $65 billion.

Instagram rolls out 'pinned comment' feature for everyone: Details here

The new feature will help users to pin on the top important or favourite comments on their posts.

Facebook-owned photo-sharing app Instagram has rolled out the pinned comment feature to help users maximise engagement. The new feature will help users to pin on the top important or favourite comments on their posts, said the company.
"We're rolling out pinned comments everywhere. That means you can a pin a few comments to the top of your feed post and better manage the conversation," the company said in a tweet on Tuesday.

Instagram started testing pinned comments in May alongside its comment filtering tools. One can pin up to three comments to the top of the post at a time, all of which will appear right underneath your photo with a "Pinned" label underneath it.

In addition to this, Instagram had also rolled out a feature for users to bulk delete comments.

To enable the feature on iOS, tap on a comment and then the dotted icon in the top right corner. Select Manage Comments and choose up to 25 comments to delete at once and then tap "More Options" to block or restrict accounts in bulk.

Aside to this, the platform is testing a new ‘Shops’ feature with select users globally to help small businesses and entrepreneurs set up a single online store for customers.

The Shops tab would replace the current 'Activity' tab for those in the test. Users would be able to access 'Activity' via an additional icon in top right.

Facebook in May announced to roll out 'Shops' on its social media platform.

WhatsApp brings dark mode to web, desktop; adds Status feature for JioPhone

New features will roll out to users over the next few weeks through the new versions of WhatsApp.

WhatsApp has announced that it shall soon get several new features on Android and iOS platform, web and desktop client and phones based KaiOS. The Facebook-owned instant messaging platform is set to introduce animated stickers and QR codes on WhatsApp for smartphones, improvements to group video calls across platforms, dark mode for WhatsApp web and desktop client, and Status feature on WhatsApp for KaiOS.

These features will roll out to users over the next few weeks through the new versions of WhatsApp.

New features coming to WhatsApp

WhatsApp Animated Stickers

The app update will add new animated sticker pack for its user to communicate in fun and intuitive way.

QR codes on WhatsApp

This will allow WhatsApp user to add a new contact by simply scanning the code.

Dark mode for WhatsApp web and desktop

The dark mode theme now extends to your computer

WhatsApp group video calls

The participants limit have been raised to eight people from four people. Moreover, the app will have a video icon in group chats of eight or less, so you can easily start a group video call with one-tap.

WhatsApp for KaiOS gets Status feature

KaiOS is the operating system that powers JioPhone and JioPhone 2. The upcoming update shall add Status feature to WhatsApp for KaiOS that will let users post an updates that disappear after 24 hour.

Starbucks latest to pause social media ads over call for Facebook's boycott

Facebook's market value dropped Friday by more than 8 per cent, or about $50 billion, as more companies said they would pause ads.

Starbucks is the latest company to say it will pause social media ads after a campaign led by civil rights organizations called for an ad boycott of Facebook, saying it doesn't do enough to stop racist and violent content.

Starbucks said Sunday that its actions were not part of the #StopHateforProfit campaign, but that it is pausing its social ads while talking with civil rights organizations and its media partners about how to stop hate speech online.

The coffee chain's announcement follows statements from Unilever, the European consumer-goods giant behind Ben & Jerry's ice cream and Dove soap; Coca-Cola; cellphone company Verizon and outdoors companies like Patagonia, Eddie Bauer and REI; film company Magnolia Pictures; jeans maker Levi's and dozens of smaller companies. Some of the companies will pause ads just on Facebook, while others will refrain from advertising more broadly on social media.

In response to companies halting advertising, Facebook executive Carolyn Everson said earlier this week the social networking platform is committed to purging hateful content from its services.

Our conversations with marketers and civil rights organizations are about how, together, we can be a force for good, said Everson, vice president of Facebook's global business group.

Facebook's market value dropped Friday by more than 8 per cent, or about $50 billion, as more companies said they would pause ads.

Big tech's behind-the-scenes bets get bigger as Covid-19 slows economy

Many companies are retreating. But Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft are placing bets to get even bigger.

Even as Facebook grappled this month with an internal revolt and a cascade of criticism over its refusal to take action on President Trump’s inflammatory posts, the social network was actively making other bets behind the scenes.

Late one Tuesday, as attention was focused on how Facebook might handle Mr. Trump, the Silicon Valley company said in a brief blog post that it had invested in Gojek, a “super app” in Southeast Asia. The deal, which gave Facebook a bigger foothold in the rapidly growing region, followed a $5.7 billion investment it recently pumped into Reliance Jio, a telecom giant in India.

The moves were part of a spending spree by the social network, which also shelled out $400 million last month to buy an animated GIF company and which is spending millions of dollars to build a nearly 23,000-mile undersea fiber-optic cable encircling Africa. On Thursday, Facebook confirmed that it was also developing a venture capital fund to invest in promising start-ups.

Other technology giants are engaging in similar behavior. Apple has bought at least four companies this year and released a new iPhone. Microsoft has purchased three cloud computing businesses. Amazon is in talks to acquire an autonomous vehicle start-up, has leased more airplanes for delivery and has hired an additional 175,000 people since March. Google has unveiled new messaging and video features.

Even with the global economy reeling from a pandemic-induced recession and dozens of businesses filing for bankruptcy, tech’s largest companies — still wildly profitable and flush with billions of dollars from years of corporate dominance — are deliberately laying the groundwork for a future where they will be bigger and more powerful than ever.

WhatsApp may have exposed users' phone numbers on Google search: Report

The vulnerability is part of WhatsApp 'click to chat' feature where user can generate link to invite others.

Facebook-owned instant messaging platform WhatsApp may have exposed its users’ phone number on Google search owing to a vulnerability in its ‘click to share’ feature. The mobile numbers of users are available on Google search in plain text format, according to an independent cybersecurity researcher Athul Jayaram.

“WhatsApp web portal has leaked around 29,000 – 3,00,000 WhatsApp user’s mobile numbers in plain text accessible to any internet user. What makes this finding easy or appears to be simple is that data is accessible on the open web and not on the dark web,” wrote Jayaram in his blogpost that was reported by Threatpost.

He added, “This privacy issue could have been avoided if Whatsapp encrypted the user mobile numbers as well as by adding a robots.txt file disallowing the bots from crawling their domain and a meta noindex tag on the pages. Unfortunately, they did not do that yet and your privacy may be at stake.”

Explaining the issue, Jayaram said that the vulnerability is part of WhatsApp ‘click to chat’ feature where user can generate link to invite others. According to Jayaram, WhatsApp does not encrypt the phone number in the link, as a result, if the link is shared anywhere, the phone number is also visible in plaintext.

For example, if a user shares a “click to chat” link on social media platform, it goes with the mobile number mentioned on it in. Anyone with access to the link might, therefore, be able to see the user’s phone number. Moreover, the URLs are accessed by Google Bots for search indexing. Therefore, the link appears in Google search results even if the original post has been removed from the source.

Samsung partners Facebook to help retailers use social media for business

The training helps offline retailers establish their business pages and accounts on Facebook and Instagram.

Samsung India has partnered with Facebook to train offline retailers to go digital. In the first phase, Samsung and Facebook have already trained more than 800 offline retailers, and more training sessions are lined up in the coming weeks, said Samsung in a statement.

Facebook has several platforms under its kitty, including Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. The focus of training programme is on enabling offline retailers build a digital presence through the Facebook family of apps.

“By leveraging the Facebook training, our retail partners will be able to discover and target local consumers digitally. Consumer too will benefit as they can now access product information and shop for Galaxy smartphones through Social Media pages of their local retailers,” said Mohandeep Singh, Senior Vice President, Mobile Business, Samsung India.

How it works:

The training helps offline retailers establish their business pages and accounts on Facebook and Instagram. Once set-up, retailers can target local consumers on Facebook and Instagram, and engage with potential consumers through WhatsApp. Connecting with local retailers online on social media platforms eliminates the need for consumers to visit the physical store of their local retailers.

Retailers can then engage with potential consumers to share information such as e-detailers and e-catalogues on available Samsung phones. Consumers can order a Samsung smartphone via WhatsApp by contacting the local retailers on retailer’s WhatsApp Business app , who can home deliver phones, ensuring consumers do not have to step out from the comfort of their homes.

Facebook takes on Amazon with online shopping, commerce venture Shops

The Facebook chief executive officer announced a handful of updates Tuesday signaling the company's commitment to online shopping and commerce.

Facebook is making another run at building a shopping empire — and this time it has the direct involvement of the company’s most important executive, Mark Zuckerberg.

The Facebook chief executive officer announced a handful of updates Tuesday signaling the company’s commitment to online shopping and commerce, one of the areas he highlighted as a priority for this year.

The main product, called Shops, is a new version of an existing Facebook feature with a similar name, and will let retailers upload product catalogs to their Facebook page or Instagram profile.

Users can find these Shops directly from the retailer’s page, or by clicking on an ad that will redirect them to a Shop inside Facebook instead of the retailer’s own website.

ALSO READ: Covid-19 crisis: Donald Trump threatens permanent freeze on WHO funding

Eventually, Zuckerberg says, these Shops will be accessible across the Facebook family, including Messenger and WhatsApp, giving retailers a way to reach Facebook’s nearly 3 billion users with one product catalog.

“This is really the first very major push that we’re going to be making into that next step around commerce,” Zuckerberg said in an interview Monday.

He also highlighted the importance of Shops for small businesses, almost all of which are operating exclusively online during the Covid-19 pandemic. The “vast majority” of Facebook advertisers are small businesses, Zuckerberg said, so ensuring they can operate is important to Facebook’s business as well.

After Facebook, Silver Lake to invest Rs 5,656 cr in Reliance Jio Platforms

The deal comes less than two weeks after Facebook made an investment of $5.7 billion to buy a minority stake in Jio Platforms.

American private equity firm Silver Lake has invested Rs 5,655.75 crore in Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries’ Jio Platforms. The deal comes less than two weeks after Facebook made an investment of $5.7 billion to buy a minority stake in Jio. The investment by Silver Lake values Jio Platforms at an equity value of Rs 4.9 trillion and an enterprise value of Rs 5.15 trillion, and represents a 12.5% premium on the equity valuation of the Facebook investment announced on April 22, 2020 – said Reliance Industries in a statement.

“I am delighted to welcome Silver Lake as a valued partner in continuing to grow and transform the Indian digital ecosystem for the benefit of all Indians. Silver Lake has an outstanding record of being a valuable partner for leading technology companies globally. Silver Lake is one of the most respected voices in technology and finance. We are excited to leverage insights from their global technology relationships for the Indian Digital Society’s transformation,” said Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries.

ALSO READ: Jio-Facebook deal likely to boost adoption of crypto-blockchain in India

Silver Lake is a prominent investor in technology space. The company has over $40 billion in combined assets under management and committed capital. Its investments include Airbnb, Alibaba, Ant Financial, Alphabet’s Verily and Waymo units, Dell Technologies, Twitter and numerous other global technology leaders.

WhatsApp now allows up to 8 people to join a group video call: Details here

WhatsApp emphasised that like written messages, all calls on its platform are protected with end-to-end encryption.

Facebook-owned instant messaging platform, WhatsApp now allows up to eight people in a group video call. The number of total participants allowed in a video call were earlier limited to four. The change has been done in view of increasing number of people turning to digital platforms to connect with friends and family amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

Last month, WhatsApp said that people on average are spending over 15 billion minutes talking each day on WhatsApp calls, well above a typical day before the pandemic.

"...we see that people all over the world are turning to voice and video calling on WhatsApp more than ever before. Group calling has been particularly useful and our users have asked to connect with more people at once," WhatsApp said in a blogpost.

Starting Tuesday, the company is doubling the number of participants one can have on a WhatsApp video or voice call from 4 to 8 people at a time, it added.

WhatsApp emphasised that like written messages, all calls on its platform are protected with end-to-end encryption.

"We have built group calling in a way that makes it available for as many users as possible, including people on lower-end devices and slow network conditions," it added.

WhatsApp said that to access the new, higher participant limit on WhatsApp calls, all participants in a call need to update to the latest version of WhatsApp available on iPhone or Android.

Reliance Jio connects with Facebook for $5.7-billion equity deal

Investment values Jio Platforms at Rs 4.36 trn; US giant gets 9.99% stake, board seat; collaboration is non-exclusive.

Facebook and Reliance Jio hit the headlines early Wednesday morning, in a break from the daily lockdown news. Mark Zuckerberg announced in a Facebook post that the technology giant will acquire a 9.99 per cent stake in Jio Platforms Ltd (JPL) through a fresh issue of shares worth Rs 43,574 crore.

The deal values JPL—the holding company of Reliance Jio — at an enterprise value Rs 4.62 trillion.

JPL’s equity value works out to Rs 4.36 trillion after Facebook’s investment, making it the fifth most valuable company in the country, behind its parent Reliance Industries (RIL), Tata Consultancy Services, Hindustan Unilever, and HDFC Bank.

Considering the market value of RIL and JPL, the Street is valuing RIL’s remaining but core businesses of refining and petrochemicals and others such as retail at a lesser number of Rs 4.28 trillion. This makes JPL more valuable than the rest of RIL.

JPL, a fully-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd, houses many digital platforms like Jio Saavn and Radisys, besides the biggest disruptor in the Indian telecom scene, Jio.

As part of the deal, Facebook will get a board seat in JPL and an observer seat without voting powers. At a concall, a couple of hours after the news broke, Facebook India CEO Ajit Mohan said, “the very fact that we are announcing the deal during Covid-19 is a reflection of our commitment to invest in the country.’’

However, both sides made it clear that they will continue to compete in many areas where they have their own digital products. For instance, while Jio Pay is already operational, Facebook is awaiting permission for its digital payment platform. Also, Reliance has Jio Chat, which competes with WhatsApp directly.

“We will collaborate, not integrate. And in some areas, we will also compete as we have our own product lines. The deal is also not exclusive,” said Anshuman Thakur, head of strategy at Reliance Jio. He also pointed out that Jio or JPL could go public, but only in the medium term, in about three to four years.

Facebook-Jio deal may see more foreign e-commerce firms flock to India

WhatsApp's integration into Jio's e-com platform holds the key: Experts

Some recent regulatory developments may have precipitated the Facebook-Jio deal. Going forward, this may increasingly prompt foreign e-commerce operators to consider setting up base in India, say legal and tax experts.

Pressure from the recently-expanded scope of Equalisation Levy that covers non-resident e-commerce platforms, the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) mandate that all data related to payments should be stored only in Indian systems, besides the rigours of an imminent Data Protection Law have played their part in shaping the Facebook-Jio deal, noted Tarun Jain, partner, BMR Legal.

The deal may not throw up any major tax issues, other than tax complexities associated with e-commerce business, said Abhishek Rastogi, partner at Khaitan & Co. The expanded scope of Equalisation Levy, as per the Finance Act 2020, is unlikely to influence the deal since most Jio platforms are likely to qualify as Indian e-commerce operator.

ALSO READ: Jio Platforms now more valuable than rest of RIL businesses put together

“It will, however, be interesting to watch the manner in which WhatsApp is integrated with these platforms and facilitates online transactions,” said Lokesh Shah, partner, L&L Partners.

Given the wide scope of Equalisation Levy, which also includes a facilitator such as WhatsApp service, the applicability will need to be examined based on the actual role of WhatsApp/ Facebook, Shah added.

Experts, however, point out that becoming an Indian tax resident could turn out to be a double-edged sword for foreign e-commerce players as it would expose the global income of such operators to tax in India.

Facebook to invest $5.7 bn in RIL's Jio Platforms to pick up 9.99% stake

Jio Platforms, Reliance Retail and WhatsApp also enter into a commercial partnership agreement.

Facebook on Wednesday announced investment of Rs 43,574 crore to pick a 9.9 per cent stake in Reliance Industries Limited's wholly-owned subsidiary, Jio Platforms, in what is being touted as the largest foreign direct investment for minority stake in India.

The company said, "Today we are announcing a $5.7 billion, or INR 43,574 crore, investment in Jio Platforms Limited, part of Reliance Industries Limited, making Facebook its largest minority shareholder."

“Reliance Industries Limited, Jio Platforms Limited and and Facebook today announced the signing of binding agreements for an investment of Rs 43,574 crore by Facebook into Jio Platforms,” Reliance Industries said in its statement.

Concurrent with the investment, Jio Platforms, Reliance Retail Limited and WhatsApp have also entered into a commercial partnership agreement to further accelerate Reliance Retail’s New Commerce business on the JioMart platform using WhatsApp and to support small businesses on WhatsApp.

The companies will work closely to ensure that consumers are able to access the nearest kiranas who can provide products and services to their homes by transacting seamlessly with JioMart using WhatsApp.

Commenting on the partnership with Facebook, Mukesh Ambani, Chairman and Managing Director, Reliance Industries Ltd, said, “The synergy between Jio and Facebook will help realise Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi’s ‘Digital India’ Mission with its two ambitious goals — ‘Ease of Living’ and ‘Ease of Doing Business’ – for every single category of Indian people without exception.”

This investment by Facebook values Jio Platforms at Rs 4.62 trillion pre-money enterprise value ($65.95 billion, assuming a conversion rate of Rs 70 to a US$). Facebook’s investment will translate into a 9.99 per cent equity stake in Jio Platforms on a fully diluted basis, the statement said.

Facebook draws user data to help scientists anticipate coronavirus spread

Information about people's identities would not be disclosed to researchers, the social network promised.

Facebook on Monday said it is providing anonymous data about users' movements and relationships to help researchers better anticipate where the coronavirus might spread.

The leading online social network is augmenting maps on "population movement" with tools to glean insights in ways that still protect people's privacy, according to a post by the Facebook head of health KX Jin and Laura McGorman of its Data for Good arm.

"Hospitals are working to get the right resources, and public health systems are looking to put the right guidelines in place," Jin and McGorman said.

"To do that, they need better information on whether preventive measures are working and how the virus may spread."

ALSO READ: Coronavirus LIVE: India cases at 4,778, death toll 136, says Worldometer

Google last week announced a similar move, saying it would provide a snapshot of users' location data around the world to help governments gauge the effectiveness of social distancing measures, implemented to stem the Covid-19 pandemic.

Tools that Facebook is providing for researchers include "co-location maps" to show probabilities of people in one specific place coming into contact with those in another, perhaps signaling where new Covid-19 cases might appear.

Coronavirus: Facebook cancels conference, Microsoft withdraws from another

Microsoft now has plans to hold a digital-only event from March 16-18. Facebook has earlier pulled out of the Game Developers Conference set to be held in San Francisco.

(Reuters) - Facebook Inc said on Thursday it would cancel its annual developer conference due to fears over the coronavirus outbreak and Microsoft Corp followed suit by withdrawing from a gaming conference scheduled for next month.

"In place of the in-person F8 event, we're planning other ways for our community to get together through a combo of locally hosted events, videos and live streamed content," said Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, Facebook's director of platform partnership.

The conference, which attracted 5,000 people from around the world last year, was scheduled to be held on May 5 and 6 in San Jose, California.

Microsoft now has plans to hold a digital-only event from March 16-18. Facebook has earlier pulled out of the Game Developers Conference set to be held in San Francisco.

In California, a person was detected with coronavirus infection on Wednesday, bringing the total number of cases in the United States to 15, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agency has warned of the possibility of a community spread of the coronavirus in the country.

Earlier this month, The Mobile World Congress (MWC), the annual telecoms industry gathering, was called off after a mass exodus by exhibitors due to fears over the coronavirus outbreak.

AT&T Inc , Verizon Communications Inc and International Business Machines Corp had earlier withdrawn from the RSA cyber security conference, set for Feb. 24 to 28 in San Francisco, due to coronavirus-related concerns.

Alphabet Inc's Google said its developer conference is still planned for May 12 to 14 as it monitors coronavirus developments.

Twitter to label altered photos, videos, remove if it may cause harm

But deciding what might cause harm could be difficult to define, and some material will likely fall into a gray area.

Technology News : Twitter will begin to label and in some cases remove doctored or manipulated photos, audio and videos that are designed to mislead people.

The company said on Tuesday that the new rules prohibit sharing synthetic or manipulated material that's likely to cause harm. Material that is manipulated but isn't necessarily harmful may get a warning label.

Under the new guidelines, the slowed-down video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in which she appeared to slur her words could get the label if someone tweets it out after the rules go into effect March 5. If it was proven that it also causes harm, Twitter could also remove it.

But deciding what might cause harm could be difficult to define, and some material will likely fall into a gray area.

"This will be a challenge and we will make errors along the way - we appreciate the patience," Twitter said in a blog post.

"However, we're committed to doing this right." Twitter said it considers threats to the safety of a person or a group serious harm, along with risk of mass violence or widespread civil unrest. But harm could also mean threats to people's privacy or ability to freely express themselves, Twitter said. This could include stalking, voter suppression and intimidation epithets and material that aims to silence someone.

Google, Facebook, Twitter and other technology services are under intense pressure to prevent interference in the 2020 U.S. elections after they were manipulated in four years ago by Russia-connected actors.

On Monday, Google's YouTube clarified its policy around political manipulation, reiterating that it bans election-related deepfake videos. Facebook has also been ramping up its election security efforts.

Plastic fantastic: Visa, Mastercard could be the next $1 trillion companies

Stock prices of both Visa and Mastercard have gained roughly 50 per cent in the past year.

Tech and internet titans were the first to reach $1 trillion in stock market value, but the next U.S. companies that could do so are better known for their plastic.

Soaring stock prices are propelling credit and debit card companies Visa Inc and Mastercard Inc up the market value charts, where they currently rank 7th and 11th among companies in the benchmark S&P 500 index. The stock prices of both Visa and Mastercard have gained roughly 50% in the past year.

While the stocks may not keep up that torrid pace, Visa and Mastercard would each be worth over $1 trillion by 2023 if their average annual gains of the past three years were to continue, surging past the likes of Facebook Inc and Berkshire Hathaway Inc, if they also maintain their recent pace.

Fueling their rise is a shift toward cashless financial transactions spurred by a rise in online shopping.

ALSO READ: Stock up: Google-parent Alphabet joins $1 trillion valuation club

"Everything travels on their rails," said Sandy Villere, portfolio manager of the Villere Balanced Fund, which holds Visa shares. "They literally sit in the middle of the banks, consumers and merchants and that has been a really enviable place to be."

Visa had a market value of $449 billion and Mastercard's stood at about $324 billion as of Thursday's close. The $1 trillion club currently includes Apple Inc, Microsoft and Google-parent Alphabet.

Amazon.com stood at $927 billion, though the e-commerce leader's shares jumped on the heels of its earnings report on Thursday after the bell, putting it in position to crack $1 trillion, as it did briefly in September 2018.

Revenue for both Visa and Mastercard nearly doubled over their past five fiscal years, to nearly $23 billion for Visa, and about $17 billion for Mastercard, according to Refinitiv data. Adjusted earnings per share more than doubled for both companies over that period.

Visa reported quarterly revenue late on Thursday that slightly missed analyst estimates, a day after Mastercard beat quarterly profit estimates

From Facebook to Twitter: How social media platforms handle political ads

The following is how social media platforms have decided to handle false or misleading claims in political ads.

Technology News : Online platforms including Facebook and Alphabet Inc's Google face growing pressure to stop carrying political ads that contain false or misleading claims ahead of the US presidential election.

In the United States, the Communications Act prevents broadcast stations from rejecting or censoring ads from candidates for federal office once they have accepted advertising for that political race, although this does not apply to cable networks like CNN, or to social media sites, where leading presidential candidates are spending millions to target voters in the run-up to the November 2020 election.

The following is how social media platforms have decided to handle false or misleading claims in political ads:

Facebook

Facebook exempts politicians from its third-party fact-checking program, allowing them to run ads with false claims.

The policy has been attacked by regulators and lawmakers who say it could spread misinformation and cause voter suppression. Critics including Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren have also run intentionally false Facebook ads to highlight the issue.

Facebook's Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has defended the company's stance, arguing that it does not want to stifle political speech, but he also said the company was considering ways to refine the policy.

Facebook does fact-check content from political groups. The company also says it fact-checks politicians if they share previously debunked content and does not allow this content in ads.

The company recently said it is making some changes to its approach to political ads, including allowing users to turn off certain ad-targeting tools. In addition, it will also make more ad audience data publicly available.

The expanded ad audience data features will be rolled out in the first quarter of this year and Facebook plans to deploy the political ads control starting in the United States early this summer, eventually expanding this preference to more locations.

Another change will be to allow users to choose to stop seeing ads based on an advertiser's "Custom Audience" and that will apply to all types of advertising, not only political ads.

Facebook's Zuckerberg drops annual challenges to focus on longer-term goals

The move would see him focus more on his role as CEO and the problems that have afflicted Facebook.

Company News : Facebook Inc Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said on Thursday he was dropping his annual challenges this year to take a longer-term focus on the decade ahead.

Zuckerberg said he plans to work on a new private social platform, decentralised technology, generational issues and new forms of digital governance among others.

The move would see him focus more on his role as CEO and the problems that have afflicted Facebook instead of personal goals such as learning Mandarin and reading two books a month.

"Rather than having year-to-year challenges, I've tried to think about what I hope the world and my life will look in 2030 so I can make sure I'm focusing on those things," he said.

Zuckerberg, whose company is under pressure for failing to adequately police content and protect user privacy on its platform, said he expects governments to come up with clearer rules for the internet over the next decade.

"Platforms like Facebook have to make tradeoffs on social values we all hold dear - like between free expression and safety, or between privacy and law enforcement, or between creating open systems and locking down data and access," he said.

"I don't think private companies should be making so many important decisions that touch on fundamental democratic values."

Over the next decade, Zuckerberg plans to fund and give a platform to younger entrepreneurs and scientists to cure, prevent and manage diseases.

He pointed out that while the internet helped people to connect with each other across the world, it also made people crave for intimacy.

"For the next decade, some of the most important social infrastructure will help us reconstruct all kinds of smaller communities to give us that sense of intimacy again," he said.