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Facebook Opens Up About Libra its New Cryptocurrency Project

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Only over ten days ago, an article from ‘The Information’ talked about Facebook’s rumoured cryptocurrency project, ‘Libra’, and today, the company has come out in open to announce that it will be launching its own cryptocurrency by the first half of 2020.

The biggest social network company, Facebook Inc., revealed on Tuesday, that it is ready to launch its cryptocurrency in 2020, in order to move its focus from social media to eCommerce and online payments.

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The company reported that the new cryptocurrency won’t be a speculative asset, like Bitcoin or the other major cryptocurrencies, but will be a type of digital currency, as stable as the dollar, that people will be able to use for normal expenditures or to transfer money globally.

According to one of the spokespersons from Facebook, the company aims to establish Libra as the first mainstream cryptocurrency, by offering people to pay for online as well as offline services through it. In the beginning, Libra will support online money transfer for the countries that lack traditional banking facilities. And, after some time, it will be used for day-to-day transactions.

Along with the cryptocurrency, the company is also working on its subsidiary, Calibra, a digital wallet, that will be used for the online transactions through the cryptocurrency. According to the company, Libra will be backed by the reserve of assets. Also, the new cryptocurrency will have its own new blockchain platform.

Facebook is excited about Libra but has also got the regulatory concerns. It has been facing backlashes from its users and the regulatory authorities due to the data breaches alligations it holds. A cryptocurrency from a company which has been responsible for these hacks and breaches is quite questionable for the lawmakers and the regulators.

The company has already in talks with the regulators in the United States, Europe and from the other countries, about the launch of its own cryptocurrency. And, these regulators are also going in depth of the announced project from Facebook to get to know more about it. Since it is not purely a cryptocurrency, many of these regularities doubt its privacy.

Facebook revealed that it has partnered with the Geneva-based association Libra for the development of its cryptocurrency. The organisation have been founded by some major companies from around the world, including Mastercard, Visa, PayPal, Stripe, eBay, Uber, Lyft, Spotify, Coinbase, Xapo, Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, Mercy Corps, and Women’s World Banking, along with Facebook. So these companies will also be playing a crucial role in decisions to be taken for Libra.

Facebook Cuts Off Huawei From Pre-Installing its Apps On Phones

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The U.S. has been trying hard to pull out most of the Chinese firms operating in the country, giving the reason of national security threat due to the data breaches, Huawei being the primary target. Recently, the U.S. authority has released a blacklisting of the Chinese tech firms, responding to which, Facebook has announced that it will stop pre-installation of its popular social networking apps on Huawei smartphones and other devices.

This way, Facebook will become the first U.S. company to cut-off Huawei from using its app. Last month, Google had also announced that it would cut ties to Huawei, to make it harder for the company to get access to the U.S. apps. As soon as Google bans Huawei from using its app, firstly Huawei will be isolated from using Google Play Store, which is the single place where all the Android apps can be obtained. So for the company, it can be quite difficult to sustain in other countries as well.

Facebook’s decision has come right after the release of Washington blacklisting, and as a response of President Donald Trump’s orders of barring Huawei from US technology exports.

“We are reviewing the Commerce Department’s final rule and the more recently issued temporary general license and taking steps to ensure compliance.” said a spokesperson from Facebook.

Since Facebook is already banned in China, the barring of Facebook app for Huawei won’t affect much the Facebook’s user base.

On the matter, Huawei has come out with the decision to build its own operating system to run on its smartphone and other cellular devices. And if Google also pulls its support for Huawei, it will also need to build a Play Store kind of marketplace for its users to access the various apps at a single place.

Washington has imposed the U.S. sanction starting from May 15 and has provided the U.S. companies with a stretch of 90 days to follow the same. Since all the U.S. technology companies need to end their partnership with Huawei, the latter would also need to look for reliable hardware suppliers. As it has been dependent on the U.S. companies, like Intel, Qualcomm and Broadcom, for chips and the other hardware supplies.

Facebook May Come Out with its New Digital Currency this Month

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Cryptocurrency is the current hot topic, and how, one of the biggest tech giant, Facebook, could resist itself from trying its hands on cryptocurrency. Though it has already developed its own Blockchain platform, now after much of rumours, finally, the company is prepping up to introduce its own cryptocurrency, GlobalCoin, this month.

Reported by The Information, Facebook is working on its first cryptocurrency project, ‘Libra’, that will bring a digital currency that would work internationally, providing the Facebook users with the facility to make purchases and transfer money across the borders, online.

Facebook, initially, will be using those crypto tokens to pay the employees working on Libra projects, if they choose tokens over fiat currency for the payments. Also, it will be the marketplace of the developing countries that Facebook will be targeting with its new cryptocurrency. It will also be offering bonuses for those merchants who would adopt Facebook’s digital currency for their transactions. The crypto from Facebook will also be integrated to use with Facebook’s other arms, like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, etc.

Facebook is already working towards integrating eCommerce to its current ventures, and in F8, its annual tech conference, the company introduced new eCommerce features, like users’ ability to buy goods directly from their favourite influencers, businesses to put up their product catalogues on WhatsApp, and letting the Facebook marketplace sellers ship their products through the Facebook app. Now, as Facebook is to bring its own cryptocurrency, this can be another move for the company in the same regard.

The company will charge the third party marketers with a fee of $10 million for the licensing to run a node for the GlobalCoin network. The company is planning to test the crypto at a global level by the end of 2018, and it will be launching the same, in 2020, in a dozen selected countries.

Instagram is Killing its Standalone Messaging App ‘Direct’ Only After Two years of its Inception

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Facebook is going forward on the way to integrating most of its apps, and after its announcement of bringing chat back to the Facebook app, the company is now planning to kill the Instagram’s standalone Direct app.

Instagram revealed that by the next month, it will pull off the support for its direct messaging app. But the Instagrammers doesn’t have to worry about their messages, as the platform will migrate all the messages from the Direct app to the Instagram app DMs.

With the launch of Direct app in 2017, Facebook and Instagram both were up to adding new features and making it a standalone messaging app to stand against rivals like Snapchat. Similar to the Snapchat app, the Direct app opens with a camera. In fact, after logging in to the Direct app, the DM feature also disappears from the Instagram app.

But as a step of Facebook in the way of consolidating all its major apps, now Direct will have to face a young death. Instead, all the features it possesses will be merged into the DM feature of Instagram.

The company has already stopped providing updates to both the versions of the app. The latest update that the Android app had received was in April, whereas the iOS app had received the latest update in December last year.

The users have been receiving messages from the company about the closure of the app, upon which, a Direct user Matt Navarra, posted a tweet in a thread, saying, “Confirmed: Instagram is killing its standalone Direct Messaging app.” Upon which Instagram also posted a tweet, “Your conversations will automatically move over to Instagram, so you don’t need to do anything.”

Shutting down the Direct app might not be a big deal for either company as the app has failed in gaining as many users as Instagram has. In fact, the Instagram app’s DM feature has been a source of business promotion for many, and it is way more popular than Direct app despite having lesser features than the Direct app.

Facebook Launches New Policy ‘One Strike’ to Prevent People from Misusing Live Streaming

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Live streaming is popular, and Facebook is among those social media platforms, who brought this feature to the common people for the very first time. But in recent times, the company has witnessed how people are missing the very feature and violating Facebook’s live video streaming guidelines. Not taking a very old example, the live broadcast of the inhuman mass shootings at two Christchurch mosques in New Zealand in March took everybody by shock.

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Keeping all this in mind, the company has decided that it will be implementing a ‘one strike’ rule, for the ones, who will be violating its live video streaming guidelines. According to the company, it will take down the accounts for a set time period, if they fail to maintain the live streaming guidelines and violate the rules.

“Starting today, people who have broken certain rules on Facebook, including our Dangerous Organizations and Individuals policy will be restricted from using Facebook Live,” Facebook wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.

The company confirmed that the ‘one strike’ rule is the result of the live broadcast of the horrifying New Zealand terrorist attack, which people kept on sharing even after Facebook had taken down the video. In fact, people were editing the video so that they could prevent the video from getting identified and will be shared further.

For such matters, the company has announced that it will be investing $7.5 million in new research partnerships, to carry out researches across industry and academia in order to improve the analysing techniques for the images and videos posted on the platform.

Previously, the company did not have much of strict rules for the violation of any of its guidelines. e.g. if there was a post that spread hate or rumours, Facebook would take the post down, and if the offence is done repeatedly by an account, the account was banned for a set period of time. But now, the rules will be stricter, as if Facebook finds someone broadcasting something offensive and violates the Facebook’s live stream guidelines for the very first time, the company will ban the account from live streaming for a certain time limit.

Facebook is also tightening its rules for the other areas that need attention, and for now, it will also be imposing strict rules for the people, who create ads that misguide people and spread hate.

“The overwhelming majority of people use Facebook Live for positive purposes, like sharing a moment with friends or raising awareness for a cause they care about. Still, Live can be abused and we want to take steps to limit that abuse.” the company wrote in the blog post.

Facebook Taking Initiatives to Help Improve the Job Conditions for its Contractors

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Facebook hires contractors for its different kinds of jobs, like moderation of the content as well as training the AI, etc. Those contractors are hired on the hourly bases. But recently, The Verge exposed the poor condition of those contact-bound moderators at the Facebook workplace in an article. Following which, Facebook finally is planning to increase the salaries of those contractors and will be providing them with extra benefits in order to improve their job conditions.

facebook moderator
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The company said in a blog post, “Today we’re committing to pay everyone who does contract work at Facebook in the US a wage that’s more reflective of local costs of living. And for those who review content on our site to make sure it follows our community standards, we’re going even further. We’re going to provide them with a higher base salary, additional benefits, and more supportive programs given the nature of their jobs.”

The company had set a basic pay of $15 per hour for every contractor in 2015, which in the past four years remained the same. Now according to the announcement from the company, after the increase in the wages the contractors in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York City and Washington, DC will soon receive a $20 hourly pay, and the ones from Seattle will earn $18 per hour. And this is not limited to the U.S. alone, but the contractors working with Facebook internationally will also get a hike in their hourly pay.

The Verge’s article on the Facebook moderator exposed a lot about the bad effect on the mental health of people. Many of those moderators even became suicidal. This has been a matter of concern for Facebook too. So now the company is also working on developing tools, that can help in protecting the moderators’ mental well being. According to the company, it will be providing its contractors with resilience training and counselling at their workplace.

The company will also be providing the moderators with other benefits including a minimum 15 days of paid holidays, sick leaves, and $4000 new child benefits for the new parents, who could not get the paternal or maternity paid leaves.

Also for the first time, the company now will provide the contractors with new options while moderating the Facebook content, such as they will now be able to blur an image temporarily for review.

The company said that the moderators and the contractors are the essential part of the company and their well being is the most required thing for the company as they “provide important services across a content review, security, culinary, transportation and other teams” and help in maintaining the content according to its community guideline.