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To complicate matters, the 19th Party Congress where top leadership positions are determined is just months away. The government puts an increased emphasis on stability in the run up to the event, which happens every five years, often leading to a tightening of internet controls.

WhatsApp, which had generally avoided major disruptions in China despite the full block of Facebook and Instagram, appears to have become a victim of those circumstances.

The blocks against WhatsApp originated with the government, according to a person familiar with the situation who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak on the record about the disruption. Security experts also verified that the partial disruption in WhatsApp started with Chinas internet filters.

According to the analysis that we ran today on WhatsApps infrastructure, it seems that the Great Firewall is imposing censorship that selectively targets WhatsApp functionalities, said Nadim Kobeissi, an applied cryptographer at Symbolic Software, a cryptography research start-up.

The actions by the Chinese government are another setback for Facebook in a country that has been difficult for the worlds largest social network to crack. Its flagship site was blocked in 2009 after ethnic unrest in western China; Instagram followed in 2014 during protests that fall in Hong Kong.

Beginning in late 2014, Facebook began an aggressive campaign to woo the Chinese government and get its main social network back into the country. As part of the courtship, Facebooks founder, Mark Zuckerberg, showed off his language chops at a conference and later dined with President Xi Jinping during a state visit to the United States.

But Facebooks efforts have slowed over the past year, and it has little to show for itself. Instead of getting a new product into China, the internet giant now faces the reality that its last app standing is under threat of being pushed outside the walls of Chinese censorship.

A spokeswoman for WhatsApp declined to comment.

Since taking power almost five years ago, Mr. Xi has presided over a consistent and deepening suppression of internet freedom. He has been vocal in calling for China to establish sovereignty online, and has set up a new internet regulator to consolidate controls over the web.

The scale of the recent actions shows the increasing muscle of the Chinese government, which has strengthened this year.

In recent months, a number of virtual private networks, tools that allow users in China to access the broader internet around the world, were removed from app stores or shut down. Chinas telecom regulator said it would ban unauthorized VPNs starting in February 2018.

The new cybersecurity rules, broad and vague, have left Western companies uncertain of how they will be applied and what impact they could have on a difficult operating environment. The government has put strong emphasis on the law, which could serve as a watershed for how the internet is managed and foreign companies are policed.

This month, Apple opened its first data center in China. The company said the move was made to comply with the law that calls for companies to store their data in China.

The disruption of encrypted messaging programs like WhatsApp and censorship circumvention tools like VPNs shows a desire to take almost total control over how the internet is used.

WhatsApp is hugely popular around much of the globe, but the platform is not widely used in China, where local messaging app WeChat dominates. Even so, WhatsApp provides encrypted messaging, making it a useful tool for many Chinese to communicate or do business outside the country or in Hong Kong.

Paul Triolo, the head of geo-technology at Eurasia Group, said that a possible next step would be for China to target other encrypted messaging apps like Signal, pointing out that such apps represent a small but growing and potentially important hole in the Great Firewall.

The ministries and support organizations that undergird the Great Firewall must constantly prove they can keep abreast of technological change, and encrypted messaging apps are just the latest in a long string of innovations that have drawn the attention of the technical wizards behind the Great Firewall, Mr. Triolo said.

The apparent crackdown is part of the jockeying among Chinese ministries ahead of this autumns congress to show that they are doing their job, according to a government tech policy adviser who declined to be named because of possible retribution over speaking to foreign news media. While there is a real push to make it harder to use VPNs, he said the new rules set to take effect next year are unlikely to be so extreme that they entirely prevent individuals from being able to use such tools.

Some in the Chinese government are worried that the excess censorship and controls are damaging the countrys ability to access crucial information, like scientific papers and other educational resources. As such, there have been calls for a more surgical way to block specific material, rather than a sledgehammer approach that takes out entire services.

In the case of WhatsApp, it is not clear whether the targeted censorship of videos and photos was intentional, or if it was just a prelude to a more complete block. Previous partial blocks have sometimes led to full bans, or they have eventually been removed by the government, and service restored.

Beijings track record with other American social networking services does not bode well for WhatsApp. Besides Facebook and Instagram, Twitter, Google and Gmail are all blocked in the country.

Its like when Gmail first got throttled, the blockage was very uneven, said Lokman Tsui, a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

View post:
China Disrupts WhatsApp Service in Online Clampdown - New York Times

With an enterprise social collaboration platform, teamwork makes the dream work -- especially if the dream is smoother, more efficient workflows and better communication among employees.

Today's IT admins face the challenging task of managing the countless amount of mobile devices that connect to enterprise networks every day. Find out how to eliminate the most common mobile data security pain points and pitfalls in this complimentary best practices guide.

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Organizations today have a number of different collaboration tools at their disposal, from document-sharing platforms to group chat apps. In this FAQ, get the answers to your burning social collaboration questions and decide whether this technology is useful for your business.

Social technology is already part of people's daily lives. Most of us reach for our smartphones before even rolling out of bed in the morning, checking Facebook and other social networking apps first thing. Social collaboration is a natural extension of that. We're already sharing our lives on social media; why not bring that instinct to the workplace?

When social collaboration is successful, it creates a collaborative environment among co-workers, through document sharing and instant messaging. Ultimately, enterprise social tools should change the way we work in a good way.

Some companies are reluctant to join the party, though, because of security concerns and resource constraints. Organizations hesitant to adopt social tools can try an enterprise file sync-and-share (EFSS) platform, such as Citrix ShareFile, that will still allow employees to share and collaborate on their work while keeping corporate data safe.

A social collaboration platform should create new lines of communication for employees.

Not if it's more than mere chitchat and meme sharing. The idea behind a social collaboration platform is to create new lines of communication for employees. When they don't have to leave their desks or pick up the phone to get in touch, they may be more likely to participate on a group project.

Dominic Namnath, CIO at Tri-Counties Regional Center, a nonprofit based in Santa Barbara, Calif., explained that the right social collaboration tool can lead to less meetings and faster decisions. "It opens the doors for people to collaborate in a way that's comfortable for them," he said.

And with EFSS platforms such as Box and DocuSign, Namnath said there is more widespread adoption of enterprise collaboration tools than ever before. Some collaboration tools may have less of a social component without, say, an instant messaging feature, but organizations without any such tool could use an EFSS platform to kick-start collaboration among employees.

Social collaboration sounds appealing, right? So, why isn't everyone in the workforce on board? If your users are reluctant to use the social collaboration tools your company offers, it's time to tweak some things. There are four epic fails to avoid:

It's important for everyone involved in the implementation process to keep an open mind. With multiple social collaboration vendors and products to choose from, it may take time to find the right fit for your business. It may also be tricky to force a certain platform on employees, especially if they manage to find an effective tool on their own and have already incorporated it into their workflows.

IT may want to take note from employees who have taken the DIY approach to enterprise social collaboration software. Involve those early adopters in the decision-making process and let their experience guide you; then, you'll know exactly what worked and didn't with their chosen platform.

Again, reaching out to employees at every level is key to finding out what users need to improve their workflows. Tap into that team spirit to make social collaboration tools work for you.

We ask IT pros: Do you use social collaboration tools?

How social collaboration improves workflows

Know the difference between social collaboration and social media

See the original post here:
How can an enterprise social collaboration platform benefit business? - TechTarget

LinkedIn is today launching its official desktop application for Windows 10, allowing theMicrosoft-owned professional social networking service to be more deeply integrated into the operating system through features like the Windows 10 Start Menu, a pinnable Live Tile, and Action Center notifications. These alerts will include things like new messages in your LinkedIn inbox, updates about whos viewed your profile, trending news stories in your industry, and other highlights, the company says.

Users can configure which alerts theyd like to see from the Notifications tab inside the app, LinkedIns blog post notes.

Microsoft closed on its $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn in December, then noting its plans to bring LinkedIn identity to Microsofts productivity applications, like Office and Outlook; the ability to draft resums and apply for jobs via Microsoft Word; LinkedIn integration with Active Directory; and LinkedIn notifications in the Windows Action Center, among several other things.

This latter item is being addressed with the launch of the new Windows 10 application, which sends out its updates in real-time a move that could make LinkedIn feel like a more active network, with timely news and information, rather than a place that many people today only think to check when theyre looking to change jobs.

At the time of the acquisition, LinkedIn had over 400 million users worldwide, which makes it the largest professional social networking site in existence. In April, the company announced it had grown to 500 million usersacross 200 countries around the world, which represented10+ million active jobs, access to 9+ million companies, and more than 100,000 articles published every week. Simply put, thats a lot of business-related information for Microsoft to tie into through this new, integrated desktop experience.

The launch of the Windows 10 application comes shortly after Microsoft announced its plans to deprecate its Windows mobile app, which will be shut down on August 30, 2017. The companys statement at the time said that Microsofts efforts were instead focused on building out the new LinkedIn desktop app, which would arrive this summer as it has today. Mobile users, meanwhile, could use the site from the mobile web if they chose, said Microsoft.

LinkedIn, whose user base is 40 percent desktop users, also rolled out an update to its desktop experience on the web in January.

The new Windows 10 app is beginning to roll out to the Windows Store today, and will be available in 22 languages at launch.

The list of supported languages includesEnglish, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese (simplified), Arabic, Danish, Italian, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Turkish, Swedish, Chinese (traditional), Czech, Indonesian, Thai, Malay, and Romanian.

The app will be available to all LinkedIn markets by the end of the month.

Originally posted here:
LinkedIn's new desktop app arrives on Windows 10 - TechCrunch

Teenagers in Britain are fortunate to have access to computers, laptops and smartphones from an early age. A child in the UK receives a smartphone at around the age of 12 among the earliest in Europe. The natural consequence of this is that children spend a significant amount of their time on the internet. Nearly 20 years or so since the first social networks appeared on the internet, there has been considerable research into their psychological, societal, and health effects. While these have often been seen as largely negative over the years, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary.

A recent report from the Education Policy Institute, for example, studied childrens use of the internet and their mental health. The report found that teenagers value social networks as a way of connecting with friends and family, maintaining their networks of friends, and long distance connections. Teenagers see social networking as a comfortable medium for sharing their issues and finding solutions to problems such as social isolation and loneliness. They are also more likely to seek help in areas such as health advice, unknown experiences, and help with exams and study techniques.

Social networks afford the opportunity to find people with similar interests, or to support teamwork in school projects. In unsettled economic and political times, teenagers use social networks as a means to be heard and to get involved in political activism, as well as volunteering and charitable activities.

Teenagers also leverage social networks to engage with creative projects, and many young artists are first noticed through the exposure offered by the rich networking opportunities of social media, such as musicians on MySpace or photographers on image sharing sites Flickr or Behance. Teenagers looking to pursue careers in art or other creative industries turn to social platforms in order to create their portfolios as well as to create with others.

These opportunities have a positive impact on adolescent character formation and the development of their individual identity, and helps them toward choosing a career path. These choices are made at an early age and to this end social networks are enriching young peoples lives.

On the other hand the report was able to list a substantial list of negative influences stemming from social media use, ranging from time wasting and addictive, compulsive use, to cyber-bullying, radicalisation, stress and sexual grooming to name just a few.

Unsurprisingly governments are concerned with the impact of social networking on the vulnerable. Concern over the uncontrolled nature of social networking has prompted action from parents and politicians. The issue of children roaming freely on social networks became an issue in the recent UK general election, and was mentioned in the Conservative party manifesto, which made a key pledge of safety for children online, and new rights to require social media companies to delete information about young people as they turn 18. This is a tall order, as it would require erasing tens of millions of teenagers profiles on around 20 different social platforms, hosted in different countries worldwide.

The Conservatives also suggested the party would create a power in law for government to introduce an industry-wide levy from social media companies and communication service providers to support awareness and preventative activity to counter internet harms. Awareness-raising is an important step towards encouraging conscious social media use among the young. But despite continuing efforts to educate youngsters about the dangers (and, to be fair, the benefits) of using social media, many are wary of the impact technology may have on overly-social teenagers once outside parental control.

It has been shown that teenagers increasingly use social networks in private, leaving parents outside environments where children are exposed to real-time content and largely unguarded instant communications. The concern raised in the report that responses to protect, and build resilience in, young people are inadequate and often outdated is timely. While schools are tasked with educating teenagers about the risks of social media, very few parents are able to effectively introduce controls on the content their children access and monitor the evolving threats that operate online.

A recent study of compulsive social media use showed that it is not the users age that matters, but their individual motivations. In fact users who are highly sociable and driven by friends towards compulsive social media use suffer physically and socially. On the other hand when users are driven by hedonic (fun-seeking) motivations, their physical health and sociability improves. This explains why teenagers in the UK see social networking as a positive phenomenon that enriches their social life. There is clearly potential to harness these positives.

While the tech giants that run the social networks with billions of users must play their part to ensure the safety of their youngest users, it is also parents role to talk openly with their children about their use of social networks and demand expected standards of use. Teenagers have questions about life and are looking for answers to their problems as they go through a challenging time of life. With the prime minister naming mental health as a key priority schools, parents, politicians and social networking platforms should help teenagers to build resilience to what they encounter online and how it makes them feel, rather than adopting only a safeguarding approach. Its interesting to note that 78% of young people who contact the organisation Childline now do so online: teachers, family and friends providing support should make the most of a medium which todays children and teenagers are comfortable with.

See original here:
Social media genie won't go back in the bottle, so we must teach youngsters to use it wisely - The Conversation UK

There's a tendency to give Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) the benefit of the doubt whenever it looks to enter any new market, because the company's track record of disruption across industries speaks for itself. For example, freshly public Blue Apron has already fallen victim to this perception, with the stock now down about 35% from its IPO price. Today, shares of the meal-kit deliverer are getting crushed on reportsthat Amazon has filed for a meal kit trademark.

But what about messaging?

Image source: Getty Images.

AFTVnews is reporting that Amazon is developing a messaging app called Anytime. The e-commerce giant has reportedly started sending out surveys to customers to gauge interest in specific features. In terms of those features, Amazon ambitiously wants to offer just about everything that existing messaging services offer, all in one place. Anytime might even be comparable to full-blown social networks.

We're talking about a potential service that includes voice and video calls, group messaging, @ mentions, photo and video filters, location sharing, interacting with businesses for customer service, cross-platform support, gaming, expressive GIFs and emojis, and even peer-to-peer (P2P) payments. The new Echo Show also offers video calling and messaging, underscoring Amazon's ambitions.

On one hand, you could argue that messaging is a core area that all the other major tech giants have jumped into, so Amazon is just keeping pace with its peers. On the other hand, messaging is already an overcrowded market, with an abundance of apps and services offered by established companies as well as smaller start-ups.

It's worth acknowledging where other companies have failed -- perhaps Amazon can learn from these missteps.

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has tried to break into social networking a couple of times, and has failed spectacularly each time. The Mac maker has seemingly accepted this fate, and now leaves social networking to the pros, now integrating various third-party services instead of building its own. However, Apple is making progress with turning iMessage into a platform, adding a dedicated iMessage App Store last year, with P2P payments coming later this year. The company's biggest advantage is that iMessage is the default messaging service in iOS, and as such enjoys deep integrations.

Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) subsidiary Google has never had a clear messaging strategy, offering no less than fivedifferent apps currently (Allo, Duo, Hangouts, Android Messages, and Voice). There was a sixth, Spaces, that was shutdown a couple months ago. Google's internal incubator Area120 released yet anothermessaging app, Supersonic, earlier this year that turned text into emojis, which has also been shut down. There's no compelling reason to have so many disparate apps. Each has a different purpose, but some feature overlap is inevitable. The consequence is consumer confusion, diluting each app's branding.

Getting into messaging on the enterprise side is much more promising. Amazon was reportedly considering acquiring Slack, and the company introduced Chime earlier this year, a video conferencing service. Given the sheer dominance of Amazon Web Services (AWS), expanding further into enterprise productivity software makes an awful lot of sense for cross-selling opportunities.

On the consumer side, it's hard to imagine Amazon making a dent in such a crowded space, particularly since it's so late to the game. Besides, no one is asking for yet another mobile messaging app.

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Link:
Why Would Amazon Get Into Messaging? - Madison.com