(This article is part of Today’s Cache, The Hindu’s newsletter on emerging themes at the intersection of technology, innovation and policy. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here.)
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Musk pushes for Twitter Blue
Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced that the Twitter Blue subscription, through which users can have a paid blue tick on their accounts, is now available worldwide for $7 per month if users sign up via their web browsers. TechCrunch reported that iOS and Android users will have to pay more due to app store fees. Those who subscribe to Twitter Blue will reportedly be able to edit/undo tweets, enjoy higher rankings in conversations, express themselves with more characters, and see fewer advertisements.
Twitter also confirmed that the legacy verified accounts, or those that received their blue ticks for free, would begin losing their verification from April 1 unless they signed up for Twitter Blue.
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Meta slams EU telecoms fees idea
Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram-owner Meta expressed in strong terms that it was against the idea of Big Tech firms like itself being forced to pay in order to support the development of European 5G and internet infrastructure.
EU telecoms firms have demanded that major tech companies like Google, Apple, Meta, Netflix, Amazon, and Microsoft should support telecom firms’ financial burden when considering the strain their services exerted on the region’s internet infrastructure. However, Meta denied that its metaverse would increase the data burden and claimed that telecoms companies ignored the investments Big Tech companies made in internet infrastructure.
TikTok CEO grilled about user safety
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew answered U.S. lawmakers’ questions about TikTok’s links to the Chinese government, the Chinese administration’s human rights record, and the presence of violent videos on the video sharing app during a U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing that could determine the fate of the platform in the country with approximately 150 million users.
Chew was firm that neither TikTok nor its parent ByteDance had any links to the Chinese government. However, he was also shown a TikTok video that promoted violence against the hearing committee, and asked how he would secure the safety of millions of other users.