Blocking

The government has issued 105 directions to social media platforms under the new IT rules that came into effect in February last year, Parliament was informed on Friday. According to information shared by minister of state for electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar in a written reply to Rajya Sabha, the directions were issued by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting under the new rules.The data shared by the minister shows that 94 directions to block content was issued to YouTube between December 2021 and April…

Indonesia temporarily opened access to online payment firm PayPal to allow users to access their money, a senior official said on Sunday, after the country's blocking of some online services and games sparked an outcry.The Indonesian communication ministry on Saturday blocked PayPal, search engine website Yahoo, and several gaming services due to failures to meet a deadline under licensing rules.Registration is required under rules released in late November 2020 and will give authorities broad powers to compel platforms…

DuckDuckGo, the privacy-oriented search engine site appears to be blocked in India. The development was spotted after several users over the Internet pointed out that they were unable to access the website on their PCs and smartphones via Airtel and Reliance Jio mobile networks. The block is also reported on Airtel broadband connections. Gadgets 360 has reached out to both Airtel and Reliance Jio for more details over this matter.The US-based DuckDuckGo seems to be blocked days after the government banned 59 Chinese apps…

We’re still at least two years away from ditching the invasive cookies, fingerprinting, and other tech that track user information and behavior across multiple sites for advertising to using Google’s preferred Privacy Sandbox set of replacements. Google originally published its intention to phase out support for third-party tracking cookies in Chrome within two years in early 2020 — now about two and a half years (and one global pandemic) ago. In a blog post published today, Google Privacy Sandbox vice president…

Jio users are taking to the Internet with complaints about Twitch being blocked by the telecom operator. Both Reliance Jio and Jio Fiber subscribers are reporting of this issue. Users report that this arbitrary blockage began around the same time as IPL 2020 cricket tournament kicked off. Few Twitch members are reportedly streaming IPL matches, and these streams claim to have had over 1.5 lakh viewers. This year, Hotstar has bagged the ‘exclusive digital streaming' rights for all the cricket matches in IPL and users…

There’s been a bit of back and forth since the change was originally announced, but this week Microsoft started rolling out an update to Microsoft Office that blocks the use of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) macros on downloaded documents. Last month, Microsft was testing the new default setting when it suddenly rolled back the update, “temporarily while we make some additional changes to enhance usability.” Despite saying it was temporary, many experts worried that Microsoft might not go through with changing…

Meta's Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp have signed up to Indonesia's new licensing rules for tech firms, government records showed on Tuesday, a day ahead of a deadline to comply or risk being blocked. The registration is required under rules released in late 2020 that would give authorities broad powers to compel platforms to disclose data of certain users and take down content deemed unlawful, or that "disturbs public order" within four hours if urgent, and 24 hours if not. Communication ministry records on foreign…

Meta Platforms Inc's Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp have signed up to Indonesia's new licensing rules for tech firms, government records showed, a day ahead of a deadline to comply or risk being blocked. The registration is required under rules released in late 2020 that would give authorities broad powers to compel platforms to disclose data of certain users and take down content deemed unlawful, or that "disturbs public order" within four hours if urgent, and 24 hours if not. Communication ministry records on foreign…

In March, a giant container ship got wedged diagonally in the Suez Canal, disrupting the global trade by blocking a vital supply route for six days. It was one of the biggest stories of the month that inevitably fueled memes. Now, an independent developer by the name of Napas Torteeka has decided to turn the event into an online game. A synopsis of the game showed that the objective of the player would be to deliver the goods on a ship to their destination without blocking or disrupting the shipping route. As the ship…

Since the early 20th century, the US has been a world leader in innovation and technical progress. In recent decades, however, some experts have worried that the country’s performance on these fronts has been slowing, even stalling. There are many possible explanations for this phenomenon, but one has seemed especially salient in recent years: an immigration system that discourages, and often turns away, the most highly skilled and talented foreign workers. Historically, immigrants have played a vital role in…