Posted on News/Media, Social Media

How Is News Shared On Facebook?

Facebook pages are the right choice for sharing information, news, and stories. It is very easy to connect with people through social media and create continuous and ongoing conversations, especially on current events. A Facebook page is a very powerful tool and it helps you n distributing content. Along with providing the latest information to the existing readers, you can also grab the attention of new readers through posting or sharing news on Facebook. 

Strategies Behind News Sharing on Facebook

There are some best practices followed for sharing news on social media like Facebook. It is possible to engage users or readers on Facebook by sharing the news based on these strategies. If the aim behind sharing news is to engage the audience, then there is little learning for you. It is possible to utilize media organization in the best possible way on Facebook.

Sharing Breaking News Updates

People turn towards more information about news soon after it happens. So, it is very important to update news on the Facebook page as soon as a story breaks. Meantime it is very important to add words like ‘breaking news’ or ‘breaking’. When this strategy is followed, the news will receive over 57 percent greater engagement. As and when the story develops it is important to post the updates. It is very important to offer multiple updates just within quick successions when a story is in trend. This can result in at least a 10 percent increase mainly in user engagement. This engagement is capitalized on by all different types of organizations. Almost any brand or company can capitalize on a hot news story. Everything from your favorite retailers to dating apps like the one found here. In fact, dating and hookup apps are known to use click bait articles to capture eyes online.

Utilizing Conversational Tone

Like most of the social media platforms, even Facebook is driven by people. So, it is very important to utilize a personal tone behind every news share. Meantime clever language can receive over 120 percent above average user engagement. Try to include analysis in the news feed and you can do it by adding referral links. This strategy can increase by over 20 percent of user engagement. It is observed that posts with just 4 lines can receive over 60 percent of user engagement when the analysis is added.

Ask Questions

It is recommended to add questions at the beginning of your conversation when you share a post. So, posts including prompts in the conversation are expected to receive over 70 percent above average user engagement. Meantime when the user asks some question you must utilize a reply option to answer it. News posts with responses can easily increase user engagement to a great extent. So, before posting some news on Facebook, you need to understand the reply option and its uses.

Visual Appeal

When you are sharing some news or posts, it is very important to add visual stories. When there is a photo in the news feed, it can bring over 50 percent increased user engagement. For conveying the evolving story, trending story, it is very important to change the cover image of the page. Cover images can easily convey the news and message intended by the user. Meantime it is a good idea to add comics and graphics in the middle.

Conclusion

These are some of the effective strategies used when sharing news on Facebook. For impressing existing readers and grabbing new readers, the post should be attractive and include visual appeal as well.…

Posted on News/Media, Social Media, Tech News

Are You On Tik Tok?

Tik Tok is a Chinese based video app that has been launched by ByteDance of China with a view to introduce it to the external market other than its own market. As Tik Tok run on a different server as per the censorship policies of China it has not been accessible within the country although the Chinese version of the same exists in another name known as Douyin. The app can be easily downloaded in most devices and is the hot favorite of youngsters as well as celebrities. The reason for Tik Tok to be so popular is it’s easy to create your own short videos and comedy. The short version is mostly within the range of 3 to 15 seconds for music videos and 3 to 60 seconds for other videos.

It is estimated that the app has been downloaded about 800 million times around the world and in US alone it is 80 million times. It is now available in over 150 countries and also in 75 languages. The latest report is that Tik Tok and NFL has partnered for taking the app worldwide and for better penetration among the masses. The partnership has been forged on September 3, 2019.

Features that Excite the Young

One of the major advantages is the concept of Tik Tok to allow users to create short videos. The young people especially love this for they are quick to respond with as many of such short videos and share with others of their community or other social platforms. A user may easily add music in the background or speed up the video for others to share and respond. The music can be selected from a wide variety and users may effortlessly edit the same with an in-built filter. There are also speed adjustments while you do so.

Since most video clips lasts for a few seconds hence there is always a plethora of creative stuffs that users upload on to Tik Tok platform for easy viewing by others.

With the Tik Tok app you may click on feature like ‘react’ so as to film reactions about your video by other users. This is movable around the screen and is pretty cool. Then there is yet another feature and this is the ‘duet’ feature. This allows you to shoot a video side by side with yet another video. There is a ‘block’ feature that allows only authorized users to see. You may find this to be a good security feature and you may therefore allow only those users to view that are your friends. This means that there are options in Tik Tok features that suggest whether you want things to be seen in public or privately only. This may be video specific too.

As Tik Tok has its own AI it can suggest the type of videos you may like based on your own preferences and choices. For this you need to go to ‘For You’ page. Further, Tik Tok is accessible for viewing based on age of the users and your name will not show up under this feature ‘For You’ page or any other hashtags.

Controversies with Tik Tok

Although Tik Tok is fun and easy to upload short videos and download the same it is not without controversies. It is a trend setter for users of all ages and being instantly creative has become its hallmark and pretty anyone with some common sense can make short video clips. Even several celebrities too use the platform and thus have considerable social influence.

One of the worst demerits about Tik Tok is that it is often used for child pornography and sexual exhibits. You may often find users displaying videos with men and women in scanty clothing. Parents of numerous children have come up against such videos and they feel that it affects the mental stability and health of their children. Studies have proved that Tik Tok can become an addiction as it is easy to upload and download for users.

Many users have complained against intrusion into their privacy too. Although the app basically can be used for what you want to see and avoid what you do not want. Still, this doesn’t actually block easy viewing of even porn stuffs. Again, the platform has quite often been used for racist activities as well cyber bullying. …

Posted on News/Media, Social Media

Facebook Data Breach Scandal

Facebook encountered the scandal of the century that damaged its reputation following the continued fallout of massive data scandal. The scandal involved a London-based election consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica, that was allegedly working for trump at that time. Being one of the giants in the social media industry, the scandal put Facebook at the center of a dispute of alleged harvesting and use of personal data. The allegations have heightened concerns over whether such data was being used to influence the US elections.

The Scandal…

Cambridge Analytica gained access to millions of data from 50million Facebook users inappropriately. The data was then allegedly used to help their client Donald trump elected. The breach came to light thanks to Cambridge Analytica whistleblower. It is said the company exploited Facebook so as to harvest millions of people’s profiles.

Facebook’s Open Graph

Facebook announced the launch of the platform Open Graph to third-party apps. This platform allowed external developers to reach out to them an access large chunks of data and also access their Facebook friend’s personal data. This App basically had access to user name, gender, birthday, location, education, relationship, political preference, religion and online chat status. Facebook changed its policies in 2014 and it did not allow third party to access users friends data without permission.

Who was affected by the data leak?

Facebook in its announcement said that the data of over 87 million users might have been shared with the political firm and they would get information from their news feed. Most of the users who were affected were in US though there were others from countries like UK, Indonesia and Philippines. There are about 40 million Facebook users in Britain which means that there are roughly 1 in 40 chance of having your data hoovered without knowledge. Facebook’s Chief technology expert revealed the number of users that were shared and the steps they were taking to restrict personal data that is made available to third-party app developers.

How was the data obtained?

A professor in Cambridge built an App called thisisyourdigitallife in 2015. It was an App that was asking users to provide information about themselves. Through the company Global Science the professor shared information about the App with Cambridge Analytica. About 270, 000 signed up and took part in the personality taste. The App has also harvested data of all the Facebook friends that were connected to the users without their prior permission. This is complete violation of people’s privacy and violated Facebooks data policy.

What data was obtained?

Cambridge Analytica obtained personal information about users where they lived and the kind of pages that they liked. This helped in the building of psychological profiles that analyzed psychological characteristics and personality traits. This kind of information was later deployed in political campaigns.

Was it legal?

Facebook has contested whether the information that they provided was really taken without consent. According to Facebook, the users willingly provided the information and no systems were infiltrated and no passwords or sensitive pieces of information were stolen.

How is Facebook Implicated

Facebook claimed that it removed the quiz app of Cambridge Analytica and requested its owners to confirm that they had deleted all the harvested data. The owners of Analytica however claim that Facebook only asked them to delete the files and did nothing to check whether the files were deleted. All they were asked to do was tick a box in a form and post it back. The files were still available online when the scandal first broke in 2018.

How is the trump campaign implicated?

Cambridge Analytica was created when Steve Bannon approached conservative mega-donors Rebekah and Robert Mercer to fund their political consulting firm. He then became the Vice president of Cambridge Analytica and during the 2016 election he reached out to Trump campaign so as to introduce the two sides. He was made a senior advisor to the Trump campaign before being fired on August 2017.

Is Russia involved?

There are allegations of Russia involvement in the scandal. According to reports, Cambridge Analytica made a pitch to Russian oil and gas company in 2014 which has remained sanctioned by the US. The company was very interested in understanding the link that exists between data, behavioral microtargeting and political campaigns. Kogan who is the vice president of Cambridge Analytica has also been linked with St. Petersburg University and is alleged to have received grant from the Russian government while developing the application.

Why is it a Facebook Scandal more than a Cambridge one

According to the Founder and CEO of Facebook, they have worked had to identify the source of the problem and ensure that such a thing never happens again. There are some measures which were already in place that prevent such an activity and they have also put in place additional measures to mitigate the problem. Former employees of Facebook however have a different story to tell. Most of them claim that there is tension between the security team and the legal policy team in regards to how they prioritize user protection when it comes to decision making. The people who are employed to protect the privacy of the user are always in a losing battle with those that are mandated to make money for the company.

There is a decent chance that Cambridge Analytica played a role in Trump’s election. However, this highlights a serious debate as to how much users can trust Facebook with their data. The act of allowing third-party developer to engineer an application for the sole purpose of gathering data and the developer was able to exploit a loophole to gather information not only not only in people who used the App but also their friends. Of course this contributes to the growing fear of lack of privacy an online activity especially in regards to social media use. With all of the personal information and day to day documentation and interaction that occurs with social media apps it doesn’t seem implausible that an entity could gain knowledge of any user’s dating life, fuck buddy hook up, casual relationships, personal preferences, political inclinations or many other pieces of personal information that could be exploited.

In summary, Facebook has been expecting this and they had set aside money to cater for such financial strain. What is not known is whether there will be additional measures put in place such as increased oversight privacy. However new information continues to come out.

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Posted on News/Media, Tech News

Best News Apps

Incase you are a news addict and you can’t just seem to stay ahead of the content that is coming your way then you might have just found your solution. It can be a daunting task searching around the news so as to find the kind of news you care about. In a bid to address that challenge most companies like Apple and Google as well as a variety of other startups are offering the best news apps that in one way or another will help you organize your news and ensure that you get the best news content that you so much care about. Most of this news is available on both Android and iOS ensuring that you use them on the smartphone of your choice.

The best news apps are picked based on their performs on different platforms such as Android and iPhones. Highlighted below are the top news apps that you should know about based on performance and user ratings.

Flipboard

Flipboard has established itself as one of the leading and most popular app news for both iOS and Android. And it is for the right reasons. Flipboard basically accesses content from around the world and curates the content so that you get the content that you care most first. You will get to find a tab called For you to see where you will be able to get the content that you like best as well as the option to explore stories that you might not be seeing. It has a very simple and outstanding reader that makes accessing content easy. Flipboard is available as a free app for both iPhone and Android smartphones.

Apple News

If you are an owner of iPhone then Apple news comes the company’s operating systems. This implies that you are able to get the information that you need at the tips of your finger tips without having to download any additional third-party app.

Apple News launches by asking you the kind of content that you prefer. It then uses that kind of information to create a curated list of stories that might suit you. The service sends notification so as to let you know when a story comes in and in case you are a Mac user; you have the privilege to syndicate content across devices.

Bad news for Android users as Apple News is not available to you. But there is some hope that Apple will bring in its News App to Android in the near future.

Google News

Google has been a major player in the business for a very long time and its aggregation engine is regarded as one of the best in the market. For those who have been accessing news then it is pretty clear that they rely on this platform to get news. Google News is available in both Android and iPhone and offers a smart experience like no other.

Just like its competitors, Google News comes with a variety of functions for analyzing your tastes as well as delivering the kind of content that you care about. When you boot it up, you will get to see the top five stories right away. Better yet, you can find a single story or even get timeline articles that will help you see how the story has evolved over time. The App works on Google account which means that you can access the news in the mobile browser and elsewhere.

Microsoft news

Microsoft news is very similar to Google news in a lot of ways.it learns from your reading habits and picks up news on your interest and the kind of sources that you like. You can even customize these topics and search for the one that you prefer.

Feedly

Feedly is a smaller news app compare to the heavyweights in the industry however it is coming on strong thanks to the very appealing designs. With Feedly, you will find an app that comes with a stripped-down design that eschews bulky banners, ugly sidebars as well as other issues. Instead, the app gives you easy access to the content that you care about through a nice full screen pane to read the articles on your phone. It also comes with a night mode for reading content in the dark.

In addition to surfacing content around the internet. Feedly also comes with artificial intelligence feature that is able to identify the kind of content that you care about and deliver it to your phone. It is available for Android and iOS and is available for free download. While many other news apps are general, this allows you to filter the content you wish to view to hyper-focused niches. The app pulls from authority sources on topics such as TNA Board for adult content, Bustle for dating and relationship news, and various tech publications, etc.

Inoreader

Inoreader is another small startup that is making considerable improvement in the industry. One of the greatest features of the App is its design. The apps dive feature separates content along diverse topic lines and it lets you build your own newsfeed based on the kind of content that you like. It makes visual components, like still images the center piece. It is available for Android and iOs.

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