An Arab Spring activist has accused the Twitter micro-blogging site of suspending his account after administrators mistook him for the leader of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group.
Iyad El-Baghdadi, who has more than 70,000 Twitter followers and frequently mocks the IS, said his account was suspended for about half-an-hour after he was misidentified as IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Indonesian newspaper Republika and the New York Post, BBC reported on Friday.
“To confuse an Arab man for the IS leader because of his very Arabic common surname is overt racism, @twitter,” he wrote on his account. ”My account gave you nearly 100 million twitter views this year, but you suspend me and keep the trolls running around, @twitter,” he wrote in another tweet.
ALSO READ: From Kirti Azad to Kim Kardashian: 5 celebrities who claimed their Twitter account was hacked
El-Baghdadi said he received a message from Twitter saying he had “violated” its rules but did not specify the offence. The activist, who also researches radicalisation, said the company needed to be “more transparent” about why and how people are suspended.
“I don’t think a single Arab country exists that doesn’t have a family with the surname El-Baghdadi,” his another tweet read.
Arab Spring refers to the democratic uprisings that arose independently and spread across the Arab world in 2011. Meanwhile, Twitter has not commented on the issue yet. In a fresh bid to combat abusive behaviour, micro-blogging site Twitter is also revising its rules to tackle hateful conduct including spreading of terror messages online.
“We believe that protection from abuse and harassment is a vital part of empowering people to freely express themselves on Twitter,” Megan Cristina, director, trust and safety at Twitter, posted in a blog recently.
“The updated language emphasises that Twitter will not tolerate behavior intended to harass, intimidate, or use fear to silence another user’s voice. As always, we embrace and encourage diverse opinions and beliefs but we will continue to take action on accounts that cross the line into abuse,” she posted.
Over the past year, Twitter has taken several steps to fight abuse in order to protect freedom of expression.

An Arab Spring activist has accused the Twitter micro-blogging site of suspending his account after administrators mistook him for the leader of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group.
Iyad El-Baghdadi, who has more than 70,000 Twitter followers and frequently mocks the IS, said his account was suspended for about half-an-hour after he was misidentified as IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Indonesian newspaper Republika and the New York Post, BBC reported on Friday.
“To confuse an Arab man for the IS leader because of his very Arabic common surname is overt racism, @twitter,” he wrote on his account. ”My account gave you nearly 100 million twitter views this year, but you suspend me and keep the trolls running around, @twitter,” he wrote in another tweet.
ALSO READ: From Kirti Azad to Kim Kardashian: 5 celebrities who claimed their Twitter account was hacked
El-Baghdadi said he received a message from Twitter saying he had “violated” its rules but did not specify the offence. The activist, who also researches radicalisation, said the company needed to be “more transparent” about why and how people are suspended.
“I don’t think a single Arab country exists that doesn’t have a family with the surname El-Baghdadi,” his another tweet read.
Arab Spring refers to the democratic uprisings that arose independently and spread across the Arab world in 2011. Meanwhile, Twitter has not commented on the issue yet. In a fresh bid to combat abusive behaviour, micro-blogging site Twitter is also revising its rules to tackle hateful conduct including spreading of terror messages online.
“We believe that protection from abuse and harassment is a vital part of empowering people to freely express themselves on Twitter,” Megan Cristina, director, trust and safety at Twitter, posted in a blog recently.
“The updated language emphasises that Twitter will not tolerate behavior intended to harass, intimidate, or use fear to silence another user’s voice. As always, we embrace and encourage diverse opinions and beliefs but we will continue to take action on accounts that cross the line into abuse,” she posted.
Over the past year, Twitter has taken several steps to fight abuse in order to protect freedom of expression.

Skype Can Now Translate Video Calls!

When you actually stop and think about it for a moment, a service like Skype is pretty amazing. It doesn’t matter where you are in the world, Skype allows you to share a video call with any other user. We’ve used it for so long we’ve probably gotten a little used to it, but the technology behind it really is incredible. And now, it’s about to get even better. On 12/15/14, they released a preview of a new feature called Skype Translator, and it does just what it sounds like it should do – it translates video calls if the callers are speaking different languages. And it’s not something that just came out of nowhere – it’s the culmination of a ton of work over the past several years.

In the preview version, it worked with English and Spanish speakers. Skype hears the callers speaking, translates their words into text, and then audibly speaks the text into the correct language for the other person in real time. And here’s a neat fact: each person will hear the text in the correct accent of the other speaker.
It is hopeful that this service will be especially beneficial to schools all over the world.
It’s unknown when the final version of the software will be available, but I wouldn’t think it would take too awfully long. What do you think? Let us know in the comments section below!

 

WhatsApp is down for some users worldwide

WhatsApp reportedly working on a web client called “WhatsApp Web”

Bengaluru-based engineer Mehdi Masroor Biswas, who was named by UK-based Channel4News as the man behind terror group Islamic State’s (ISIS) most influential Twitter handle, was arrested from his flat on Saturday and slapped with charges of “waging war” and unlawful activities.

24-year-old Biswas has “confessed” that he was handling the pro-jihad tweeter “@ShamiWitness” and became “a source of incitement and information” for new ISIS recruits, Karnataka DGP L Pachau told reporters.

Biswas, an engineer working as “manufacturing executive” with ITC Foods for an annual package of Rs 5.3 lakh, was arrested from his rented one-room apartment, Police Commissioner M N Reddi said, adding, he did not resist while being taken into custody.

When contacted, Nazeeb Arif, Vice President Corporate Communications of ITC LTD, admitted that Biswas was an employee. “We informed Bengaluru police about his employment status as soon as we found media reports on this issue, and have extended cooperation with the investigation process,” Arif said.

Biswas, hailing from West Bengal, had admitted to operating “@ShamiWitness” twitter account for the last many years and had more than 17,000 followers on Twitter. He used to “ferociously” tweet by aggregating information and closely watching developments of the region, Pachau said.

Reddi said Biswas had been arrested under Sec 125 of IPC (whoever wages war against the Government of any Asiatic power in alliance or at peace with the Government of India or attempts to wage such war, or abets the waging of such war), Sections 18 and 39 of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Section 66 of the Information Technology act.

Asked if Biswas had any link with ISIS, Reddi said it was being investigated “but by and large, our interrogation of the accused reveals that he was majorly in the virtual world.” Two mobile phones and a laptop had been seized from him.

Bengaluru Police had launched a manhunt for Biswas after Britain’s Channel4News had aired the report regarding the country’s IT capital’s link with the Twitter account that is followed by foreign Jihadis. The channel had said its investigation had revealed that the man operating the account is called Mehdi and he is an executive in Bangalore working for an Indian conglomerate.

“After the interrogation for the past few hours, as of now, we don’t see his involvement in any kind of terrorist activities within the country,” Reddi said.

Twitter weighs in on trolls, improves harassment policy

 

 

Twitter teases new features like native video sharing and editing, personalized timeline highlights, and improved DMs