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Facebook to test cutting back on political posts in the News Feed
Facebook plans to test how people respond to seeing fewer posts about politics in the News Feed. Starting this week, Facebook will “temporarily reduce” political posts for a “small percentage” of people in Canada, Brazil, and Indonesia, with a test in the US following some weeks later. The tests will continue for the next few months. The experiment comes in response to feedback Facebook has (somehow just now) heard that “people don’t want political content to take over their News Feed,” Aastha Gupta, product management director at Facebook, wrote in a blog post this morning. The goal is to improve the News Feed by “finding a new balance of the content people want to see.” Gupta says that political content only makes up about 6 percent of the typical News Feed right now in the US. Nonethele...
Several dead as freight ship sinks off Turkey’s Black Sea coast
A Palau-flagged freight ship has sunk off the coast of Turkey’s Black Sea province of Bartin, killing at least three crew members, according to Bartin Governor Sinan Guner. Guner had said earlier on Sunday that the ship, the Arvin, was a Russian dry freight vessel that sank off the coast of the Inkumu region in poor weather, but later corrected that. “The Arvin ship attempted to take refuge at the Bartin port due to poor weather conditions as it carried cargo from Georgia to Bulgaria,” Guner was quoted as saying by Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency. The coastguard said the ship had sunk after taking in water amid poor weather. Six crew members had been rescued and efforts were under way to rescue others, it said in a statement. Anadolu said that all of them were hospitalised and were ...
SON: We have initiated more measures to tackle importation of substandard products into Nigeria
File Photo The Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) said it has devised more efficient measures against importation of substandard products to protect local manufacturers in the country. The Director-General of SON, Mallam Farouk Salim stated this during a visit to the organization’s office in Awka, Anambra State, on Saturday. According to Mallam Salim, the agency will continue to discourage importers of substandard products from short-changing unsuspecting consumers. He also announced plans to improve workers welfare and increase engagement with stakeholders in the country, noting that the move by the agency would help protect the interest of the business community while also safeguarding life and property. The Director-General assured that the organization would work with stakeholders ...
Coronavirus takes toll on federal roads’ construction in Lagos
The ravaging effect of Coronavirus (COVID-19) was, perhaps, the biggest challenge faced by stakeholders in the road sub sector of the construction industry in 2020. As the virus gained ground, several contractors soon abandoned work and shut their operations, consequently, many hitherto gainfully employed Nigerians were thrown into the labour market. Even when the government later introduced partial lockdown measures, the number of workers on site was scaled down by many contractors in line with COVID-19 protocols, which slowed down progress of work. Virtually all road projects in Lagos State suffered the effect of the pandemic, with every project having its own peculiar challenge. The reconstruction of 46km Agbara-Seme section of the Lagos-Badagry Expressway project awarded to CGC Nigeria...
Indonesian plane crashes after take-off with 62 aboard
A Sriwijaya Air plane crashed into the sea on Saturday minutes after taking off from Indonesia’s capital Jakarta. The plane was on a domestic flight with 62 people on board and their fate was not known. The Boeing 737-500, en route to Pontianak in West Kalimantan, disappeared from radar screens after taking off just after 2.30 p.m. (0730 GMT) – 30 minutes after the scheduled time because of heavy rain. Indonesian Transport Minister, Budi Karya, told a news conference that 62 people had been aboard Flight SJ 182, including 12 crew. The detik.com website quoted him as saying the plane crashed near Laki Island, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the airport. Rescue agency Basarnas said in a statement it would send a team to the Thousand Islands area to help in the search for victims “after th...
Reddit bans Donald Trump forum for inciting violence
Reddit has banned r/donaldtrump for encouraging and glorifying violence after Wednesday’s mob attack on the US Capitol. Axios reporter Sara Fischer first reported the news, noting that the unofficial pro-Trump forum had been given multiple warnings. A Reddit splash page says the subreddit was “banned due to a violation of Reddit’s rules against inciting violence.” “Reddit’s site-wide policies prohibit content that promotes hate, or encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence against groups of people or individuals. In accordance with this, we have been proactively reaching out to moderators to remind them of our policies and to offer support or resources as needed,” a Reddit spokesperson tells The Verge. “We have also taken action to ban the community r/donaldtrump given repeated...
YouTube removes Donald Trump video addressing US Capitol attack
YouTube has removed a video from US President Donald Trump addressing a mob attack on the Capitol today because the president repeats false information about the outcome of the 2020 election. The company will allow Trump’s message to appear in other creators’ videos if there is proper educational or news context; basically, if people are talking about Trump’s message as part of a greater point, YouTube will allow it to remain up. The removal comes after YouTube instituted a new policy update in December 2020 that forbids any type of content that alleges widespread voter fraud impacted the results of the 2020 presidential election. In Trump’s new video, which was also posted to Twitter and Facebook, he continued to spread misinformation about the 2020 election, calling the results fraudulen...
U.S. agents search Nashville blast site, seeking clues behind Christmas explosion
Police and federal agents were scouring the charred site of a Christmas Day explosion in Nashville on Saturday, trying to determine how and why a motor home blew up and injured three people in the heart of America’s country music capital. The fiery blast, heard from miles away, destroyed several vehicles, damaged more than 40 businesses and left a trail of glass shards around the area. The motor home, parked on a downtown street of Tennessee’s largest city, exploded at dawn on Friday moments after police responding to reports of gunfire noticed the recreational vehicle and heard an automated message emanating from it warning of a bomb. The means of detonation and whether anyone was inside the RV when it blew up were not immediately known, but investigators were examining what they believed...
Qatar to host FIFA Club World Cup 2020 across three venues
Qatar will host the FIFA Club World Cup 2020 from February 1 to 11, 2021, after it was postponed earlier this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Six continental confederations, as well as the host nation’s league champions, will compete in the tournament, which will be held across three FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 stadiums — Ahmad Bin Ali, Khalifa International and Education City. The Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium, inaugurated just last week on December 18, will stage the opening match between Qatari champions Al Duhail and Auckland City of New Zealand on February 1, and the final will be played at Education City Stadium on February 11. Joining the two teams will be European champions and German side FC Bayern Munich, CONCACAF champions Tigres UANL from Mexico, Al Ahly SC, Egyptian side and winners ...
Jerusalem church suffers damage in arson near Garden of Gethsemane
Israeli police on Friday arrested a man for trying to set fire to an east Jerusalem church by the Garden of Gethsemane, the site revered by Christians as the place where Jesus prayed before he was crucified. The 49-year-old Israeli suspect poured flammable liquid inside the Church of All Nations, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. The man then set it alight, a separate police statement said, before the church guard detained him. “Preliminary investigation and the suspect’s details strengthen the assessment that the background to the incident was criminal,” police said, suggesting investigators believed it was not a hate crime. Reuters pictures showed a charred bench and a small blackened portion of the mosaic floor of the Catholic church, which overlooks Jerusalem’s walled Old City. “T...
Joe Biden urges Americans to be safe during holiday, fight coronavirus pandemic
U.S. President-elect Joe Biden on Wednesday pleaded with Americans to take steps to remain safe as COVID-19 cases surge on the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday and pledged again to make combating the pandemic a top priority when he takes office in January. “I believe you always deserve to hear the truth from your president. We have to slow the growth of this virus. We owe it to the doctors and the nurses and the frontline workers … We owe it to our fellow citizens,” Biden said. He urged people to forgo big family gatherings, wear protective masks and maintain social distancing. “I know we can and we will beat this virus,” Biden added, acknowledging that Americans are feeling pandemic fatigue. “Life is going to return to normal. I promise you. This will happen. This will not last forever.” T...
U.S. imposes fresh Iran-related sanctions, targets Ayatollah Khamenei-linked foundation
The United States on Wednesday imposed sweeping new sanctions targeting Iran, blacklisting a foundation controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and taking aim at what Washington called Iran’s human rights abuses a year after a deadly crackdown on anti-government demonstrators. The post U.S. imposes fresh Iran-related sanctions, targets Ayatollah Khamenei-linked foundation appeared first on TODAY. You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blogging and help give users back their fair share of Internet revenue.
