ShareChat raises $100 million in Series D funding led by Twitter

ShareChat is India's largest regional social network that claims 60 million monthly active users.

Business Standard : ShareChat, a regional social media platform, on Friday announced that it had raised a new round of funding of $100 million in its Series-D funding, where Twitter and TrustBridge Partners are two new investors.

To date, ShareChat has raised $224 million. Existing investors participating in this round include Shunwei Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SAIF Capital, India Quotient and Morningside Venture Capital.

This new round of funding will help ShareChat strengthen the technology infrastructure for its platform as the company looks to scale its business. Additionally, ShareChat will acquire talent to help propel the exchange of ideas among its strategic partners. To accelerate the internet ecosystem in India, the company will also be introducing more features to make the experience seamless across devices.

“This is a very exciting time for us at ShareChat as we see our platform growing rapidly. With this new round of funding, we are positioned to take the next leap in our growth story. As we scale up, our focus remains to help the ShareChat community better express themselves in the comfort of their native language,” Ankush Sachdeva, CEO, ShareChat ​said.

Manish Maheshwari, Managing Director of Twitter India said that Twitter and ShareChat are aligned on the broader purpose of serving the public conversation, helping the world learn faster and solve common challenges. This investment will help ShareChat grow and provide the company’s management team access to Twitter’s executives as thought partners, he added.

“Lightspeed is excited to continue to support ShareChat in every financing round – Series A through the current Series D, and beyond. We feel the company has a special opportunity to consolidate its position as the defining media platform to engage India’s diverse, multicultural and multilingual population,” Ravi Mhatre, Founder & Managing Director, Lightspeed Venture Partner said,.

Tuck Lye Koh, Founding Partner and CEO, Shunwei Capital said, “We are excited to see users creating a lively community with diverse vernacular content on ShareChat. The diversity and depth of user generated content has enhanced the stickiness of the product, and will contribute great business value to ShareChat as a platform. We look forward to the next stage in ShareChat’s evolution.”

Anand Lunia, Partner, India quotient said, “Today, ShareChat stands for opportunities, learning, entertainment, and a lot more.

Facebook accounts shut for meddling in US polls may be linked to Russia

On Tuesday, the numbers of accounts removed for "coordinated inauthentic behavior" was raised to 36 at Facebook and 99 at the social network's Instagram service.

Facebook on Tuesday said it shut down more accounts aimed at influencing the US midterm election and that it is exploring a possible link to Russia."As we've continued to investigate, we detected and removed some additional Facebook and Instagram accounts," head of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher said in an update posted at the social network.While stressing the challenge of identifying the culprits, he noted that a website claiming to be associated with the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russia-based troll farm, published a list of Instagram accounts they said that they had created.

Facebook had already shut down most of those accounts, and blocked the rest after an internal investigation, according to Gleicher. (Business Standard )

"Ultimately, this effort may have been connected to the IRA, but we aren't best placed to say definitively whether that is the case," Gleicher said.

"Trolls have an incentive to claim that their activities are more widespread and influential than may be the case." On the eve of the midterm election, Facebook announced it blocked some 30 accounts on its platform and 85 more on Instagram after police warned they may be linked to "foreign entities" trying to interfere.

On Tuesday, the numbers of accounts removed for "coordinated inauthentic behavior" was raised to 36 at Facebook and 99 at the social network's Instagram service.

Most of the accounts were created after the middle of last year. Overall, the Instagram accounts had amassed about 1.25 million followers, with 600,000 of those people located in the United States, according to Facebook.

Meanwhile, the Facebook pages had attracted a total of approximately 65,000 followers in total, with posts mainly in French.

Most of the Instagram accounts were said to be in English.

Facebook shared examples of content being shared, saying there were many posts about celebrities as well as social issues such as women's rights and gay pride.

Facebook blocked the initial accounts a day after being contact by US law enforcement officials about online activity they believe may be linked to foreign entities.

A study published in late October found that misinformation on social media was spreading at a greater rate than during the run-up to the 2016 presidential vote, which Russia is accused of manipulating through a vast propaganda campaign in favor of Donald Trump, the eventual winner.

Major online social platforms have been under intense pressure to avoid being used by "bad actors" out to sway outcomes by publishing misinformation and enraging voters.

Facebook weeks ago opened a "war room" at its Menlo Park headquarters in California to be a nerve center for the fight against misinformation and manipulation of the largest social network by foreign actors trying to influence elections in the United States and elsewhere.

The war room is part of stepped up security announced by Facebook, which will be adding some 20,000 employees.

Google is teaching children to 'be internet awesome' when it's not being so

The game is meant to help students from third grade through sixth guard against schemers, hackers and other bad actors.

Google is on a mission to teach children how to be safe online. That is the message behind “Be Internet Awesome,” a so-called digital-citizenship education program that the technology giant developed for schools.

The lessons include a cartoon game branded with Google’s logo and blue, red, yellow and green color palette. The game is meant to help students from third grade through sixth guard against schemers, hackers and other bad actors.

Google plans to reach five million schoolchildren with the program this year and has teamed up with the National Parent Teacher Association to offer related workshops to parents.

But critics say the company’s recent woes — including revelations that it was developing a censored version of its search engine for the Chinese market and had tracked the whereabouts of users who had explicitly turned off their location history — should disqualify Google from promoting itself in schools as a model of proper digital conduct. ( Business Standard )

Among other things, these critics argue, the company’s lessons give children the mistaken impression that the main threat they face online is from malicious hackers and bullies, glossing over the privacy concerns that arise when tech giants like Google itself collect users’ personal information and track their actions online.

sity in Ontario, put it, “‘Be Internet Awesome’ generally presents Google as impartial and trustworthy, which is especially problematic given that the target audience is impressionable youth.”

In a statement, Julianne Yi, who leads the Google program, said it had “proven useful to kids, teachers, and families around the world,” and was supported by, among others, the National P.T.A., the International Society for Technology in Education and the Family Online Safety Institute.

Of those groups, Google is a national sponsor of the National P.T.A., a financial supporter of the Family Online Safety Institute and a year-round mission sponsor of the International Society for Technology in Education, which promotes the use of technology in public schools.

Jim Accomando, the president of the National P.T.A., said that the organization “does not endorse any commercial product or service,” although companies that give money to the group may receive “promotional consideration.”

“Google is a great example of a partner that aligns with our goals, and they have deep tech knowledge that they bring to the table,” he said... Read More

Facebook cracks the whip, to remove bogus posts that could spark violence

Hate speech and threats deemed credible are violations of Facebook rules.

Facebook Policy : Facebook has built on its campaign to prevent the platform from being used to spread dangerous misinformation, saying it will remove bogus posts likely to spark violence.

The new tactic being spread through the global social network was tested in Sri Lanka, which was recently rocked by inter-religious over false information posted on the world's leading online social network.

"There are certain forms of misinformation that have contributed to physical harm, and we are making a policy change which will enable us to take that type of content down," a Facebook spokesman said after a briefing on the policy at the company's campus in Silicon Valley.

"We will begin implementing the policy during the coming months." For example, Facebook may remove inaccurate or misleading content, such as doctored photos, created or shared to stir up volatile situations in the real world.

The social network said it is partnering with local organisations and authorities adept at identifying when posts are false and likely to prompt violence. Misinformation removed in Sri Lanka under the new policy included content falsely contending that Muslims were poisoning food given or sold to Buddhists, according to Facebook.

Hate speech and threats deemed credible are violations of Facebook rules, and are removed.

The new policy takes another step back, eliminating content that may not be explicitly violent but which seems likely to encourage such behaviour.

Facebook has been lambasted for allowing rumours or blatantly false information to circulate that may have contributed to violence.

Many see Facebook as being used as a vehicle for spreading false information in recent years.

Facebook has implemented a series of changes aimed at fighting use of the social network to spread misinformation, from fabrications that incite violence to untruths that sway elections.

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