Here’s our latest weekly update on social media hot topics for the past week in Sri Lanka and across the world
This week our team wrote about
Our Blogs:
- Fighting Mindsets – An Interview with Grassrooted
What Went Viral in Sri Lanka?
- Victor Rathnayake’s son’s social media outburst
Victor Rathnayake and his recent marriage to a lady of 33 years has caused much stir in this past week on social media. While the veteran singer who is reputed as the “master” of music in Sri Lanka, suddenly became the source of many memes and brunt of many jokes, the public divided into two; one who said “leave him alone it’s his personal life” and the other that said “this goes against our culture and what we expected of him”. In the midst of all this perhaps the strongest outcry came from Victor’s son, Lelum Rathnayake who went on social media to speak of his father’s partner mentioning that she only married him with nefarious intentions and that she is a gold-digger of sorts. The number of views on his video that went viral showed the wide public interest in Victor Rathnayake’s very personal matter. While social media is certainly the biggest source of all news both good and bad these days, is it the best place for a son to vent out on his father? Is the airing of dirty laundry on social media advisable? Many social media users tend to update even the most intimate details of their lives on it and more often than not, it’s a bad decision.
- Voting starts for BestWeb
BestWeb.lk 2017 is the most recent instalment of a successful competition which has been held in Sri Lanka to choose the best .lk website from among many strong contenders. The previous instalment was held in 2015. The competition has now entered its voting and traffic monitoring phase where individuals will be able to cast their vote for their favourite website. Winners will be chosen from several categories and the post on Facebook reached 12k likes showing the public interest in this reputed competition.
This Week’s International Hubub
- The Kareena Kapoor Controversy in India
Kareena Kapoor and her husband Saif Ali Khan, both of whom are A-list Bollywood celebrities have been in the spotlight much recently for naming their newborn son Taimur. India’s Bollywood fan base reacted mostly negatively stating that naming a child after a cruel Persian conqueror is wrong, which even raise rumours that said the couple were planning to change the name of their child under pressure. However, so far they have not and even before this line of fire ceased a picture of Kareena Kapoor seems to be going viral under the context that she is converting to Islam, her husband’s religion. An anonymous individual shared an old image of Kareena with a scarf around her head making this statement which is, in fact, untrue. This still has not stopped the general public and her fans from dissecting and analysing her personal relationships and family life as well as morals. At this point, the use of media and social media both seems to be infringing on the privacy of these actors as ideally, their off-screen lives should not be under constant scrutiny 24/7.
Stats of the Week
Things you should know
- “Facebook failed to remove sexualised images of children”
Damian Collins – Chairman of Commons Media, stated that he had “grave doubts” about the effectiveness and efficiency of Facebook’s content moderation processes after BBC reported dozens of images to Facebook, only to realise that over 80% of these were not taken down. The reported images included those from groups that were discussion and image exchanging forums for child abuse material from the looks of it. When Facebook was provided with these examples, the network reported the involved journalists to the law enforcement authorities and also cancelled an interview that was scheduled, according to sources. The social network then issued a statement saying “It is against the law for anyone to distribute images of child exploitation”. However, Damian also said that it was truly a surprise that BBC had been reported to the police when they were only attempting to “help clean up the network”. Defensive much Facebook?
- Facebook launches Messenger Day as a tit for tat on Snapchat Stories
Facebook launched Messenger Day worldwide, on 09th March 2017. The aim is to put a “utilitarian spin” on the slideshow format which is in use at the moment. It poses a direct competition for Snapchat Stories which is used for retelling what a user has done, Messenger Day’s “Who’s up for?” filters and “Active Now” indicators help the user to find friends to chat or meet up with. After been put through numerous tests in various countries such as Poland and Australia, Messenger Day rolled out yesterday worldwide as a feature on the top of Facebook’s chat app. The iOS and Android and desktop updates have been launched for the same. The new features allow a user to share embellished images and videos with the public or a customised friend list. The images and videos will disappear after 24 hours.
- Google and Facebook needs regulation – British News Industry
The newspaper publishers of Britain lodged a complaint with a government committee that is currently investigating the fake news crisis and also mentioned that regulators need to investigate into Google and Facebook’s dominance in the media and advertising industries. Owing to their influence in the market, the two tech giants need to be regulated by the country’s communications and competition authorities, the group further stressed. They also brought up a potential enforcement of a fee to be paid to newspapers by these two organisations for utilising their content.
- Twitter’s latest update could come in handy for iPhone users
The latest Twitter update that was launched on the 08th march 2017, brought in a new feature that could prove useful to iPhione users by helping to clean out a lot of space on their mobile. The update enables the addition of storage options to the Twitter app. To access this one could click on Settings and then Storage to view what is currently been cached, which is surprisingly about two to three hundred MBs.
- YouTube TV Vs DirectTV Now, Sling TV and PlayStation Vue
YouTube announced the much awaited Youtube TV service last week which immediately threw the online video platform into the extremely competitive arena of live TV streaming. The $35 deal looks superficially, to be a bit of a jackpot given the scores of broadcast and cable channels, a sports network, a cloud-based DVR service and even up to 3 parallel streams and more. The main competition at the moment to Youtube TV is DirectTV Now, Sling Tv and PlayStation Vue.