Sri Lanka Social Media Weekly News Update

Sri Lanka Weekly Social Media News Update 26/06/2017

Read our latest update on the viral trends on social media in Sri Lanka and across the world last week.

This week our team wrote about:

Our Blogs

  • Why some campaigns go viral: an insight into the factors behind why some campaigns go viral while others don’t and some good examples to learn.

What Went Viral in Sri Lanka?

  • SAITM protest ends in chaos with doctors on strike

The issue with SAITM protests is still continuing strongly in Sri Lanka. In one such latest protest, that went viral on social media across the country, about 80 individuals were injured when the military had to be called in to control the situation that was getting aggressive by the minute. While the health ministry has stated that the attacks by the students had caused damage to public property, doctors from the GMOA went on strike in their support of the anti-SAITM movement. This was vastly criticized, especially because the country is in a state of an epidemic due to the dengue fever and a strike by doctors at this point goes against the Hippocratic oath that they have taken as well.

  • Dayasiri Jayasekara blames Sri Lankan cricket team and players undergo a fitness test in response.

Cricketers Lasith Malinga and Nuwan Kulasekera posted their fitness assessment results on Twitter in response to the Minister Dayasiri Jayasekara’s blames that the team is not fit enough. However, while the post went viral, many of the public actually stated that the team could improve with getting their fitness in better condition.

 

  • BBC World broadcasts BBC Sinhala investigation into Muslim child marriages in Sri Lanka

 

BBC Sinhala has started looking into the harsh truth around the child marriages in the Muslim community of Sri Lanka. The post of Facebook has attracted the attention of many people, given its sensitive nature. The comments clearly indicate the two sides of the argument; the pro-child marriage sector that insists that by their religion is it correct and acceptable and the anti-child marriage masses that strongly oppose this and say that it is child abuse.

This Week’s International Hubbub

  • Children taken hostage as Islamic militants storm school in the Philippines

A school in the Philippines was thrown into chaos when a group of Islamic militants stormed through it and took several children hostage. A gunfire ensued with armed forces and waged on for a full day before the extremists fled the premises of the school leaving all 31 of their hostages that included 12 children unharmed. Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) are known to be an extremist Islamic militant group. The post went viral on Facebook’s Yahoo Philippines page with many stating that the wrong should be brought to justice.

  • Russia’s military reports that it may have killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

Moscow, on Friday, stated that its armed forces may have killed Abu Bakir al-Baghdadi in Syria last month, during an airstrike. However, Washington stated that they were unable to corroborate the same while Western and Iraqi officials remain skeptical of the report. When the incident went viral on social media, the blame fell to the powers like the USA with the masses stating vehemently that the country is responsible for the creation of such groups and all of this is done in the name of oil and nothing else.

  • Donald Trump to  build a solar wall along the Mexican border

Addressing a rally at Cedar Rapids in Iowa, Donald Trump says that he will be building a solar wall along the Mexican border. As usual, this tweet received a lot of humour-filled comebacks, most of which ran along the lines of “he just says things for the sake of it and it never gets done”. It looks like the POTUS has no credibility in the eyes of the people.

Stats of the Week

The Gossip Lanka Sinhala News page came in among the top five fastest growing community Facebook pages in Sri Lanka. However, their Youtube statistics are not on par with their Facebook page. Given the fact that almost all their posts are done in the “hot topics” context, they could easily build up their Youtube community as well because their client base is not limited to just Sri Lanka. Perhaps, using the Facebook page to promote their Youtube channel is one good way of getting started on this.

Gossip Lanka Sinhala News YouTube Channel statistics are as follows:

Total Subscribers -785
Total Videos -23
Total views -414,215

gossip lanka sri lanka social media weekly news updates

The Siyatha Miss World Sri Lanka Facebook page has increased in popularity, coming in among the top five fastest growing entertainment Facebook Pages in Sri Lanka. However, the relationship the page shares with their Youtube channel is a poor one with very few videos and subscribers following it. Because the page is essentially for a beauty pageant, they could easily focus a lot more on promoting the Youtube channel to share their videos and cross-promote the same on Facebook.

Siyatha TV YouTube Channel statistics are as follows:

Total Subscribers -14
Total Videos -25
Total views -1,051

siyatha sri lanka weekly social media news updates

Things you should know

 

  • Facebook introduces a feature to prevent profile pictures being abused by other users

 

Facebook’s “photo guard” now allows users to protect their profile picture, thereby preventing it from being used by other users. The new feature will stop others from downloading or sharing a profile picture with third parties, stops unnecessary tagging, stops the ability to take screenshots (this is only available for the Android app at the moment).

 

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