Presented as “Threads, an Instagram app,” this new program is expected to be fully accessible in the coming days and is described on Apple’s app store as “Instagram’s text-based conversation app.”

According to the app’s description on the store, Threads aims to be a place where communities can engage in discussions about various topics, from current interests to upcoming trends.

The launch of Threads follows a period of uncertainty at Twitter after Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla, took over the company in October. Under his leadership, the company underwent significant restructuring, leading to layoffs, and some features were made exclusive behind a subscription paywall.

In mid-March, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced its plans to develop a new social network that could potentially compete with Twitter.

Threads promises to offer users the ability to directly connect with their favorite creators and like-minded individuals, or even build a dedicated following of their own to share their ideas, opinions, and creativity with the world, as stated in its app store description.

The group behind Threads also shared a vision of creating a decentralized and independent social network that facilitates real-time sharing of written messages, according to a statement sent to AFP.

Twitter recently faced criticism when Elon Musk announced that the platform would restrict the number of tweets that non-subscription users could read per day.

The majority of users, who don’t pay for subscriptions, were limited to only 1,000 tweets a day. This move was primarily aimed at limiting third-party access to the social network’s data, particularly companies that use the data to train artificial intelligence models.

In a brief statement published on his official Facebook page on Tuesday, Zuckerberg made this known.

“Starting today (Tuesday), you can log into the same WhatsApp account on up to four phones,” his post reads.

Users of the well-known messaging and video calling software were previously limited to logging into their accounts on a single phone with the same number.

The previous account will be instantly deactivated if you try to deploy the same thing on another phone.

WhatsApp is an internationally available freeware, cross-platform, centralised instant messaging and voice-over-IP service owned by the tech conglomerate, Meta.

The app allows users to send text and voice messages, make voice and video calls, and share images, documents, user locations, and other content seamlessly.

The company’s Chief Executive Officer, Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement on the backdrop of Meta shares that jumped 6% on the news, according to Reuters.

The widely anticipated job cuts are part of a wider restructuring that will also see the company cancel hiring plans for 5,000 openings, scrap lower-priority projects and flatten layers of middle management.

“I think we should prepare ourselves for the possibility that this new economic reality will continue for many years,” Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in a message to staff.

Anxieties of an economic downturn due to rising interest rates have sparked a series of mass job cuts across corporate America: from Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs (GS.N) and Morgan Stanley (MS.N) to Big Tech firms including Amazon.com (AMZN.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O).

Meta, which is investing billions of dollars to build the futuristic metaverse, has faced difficulties with a post-pandemic slump in advertising spending from companies worried about the economic outlook.

In response, Zuckerberg has promised to turn 2023 into the “Year of Efficiency”. With the latest move, Meta expects expenses in 2023 to come in between $86 billion and $92 billion, lower than the $89 billion to $95 billion forecast previously.

Meta CEO said the tech firm will end multiple layers of management, ask managers to become individual contributors and give them less than 10 direct reports, which would in turn make the organization “flatter.”

“We don’t expect to grow headcount as quickly, it makes more sense to fully utilize each manager’s capacity and defragment layers as much as possible,” he said.

Meta’s move in November to slash its headcount by 11,000 marked the first mass layoffs in its 18-year history. Its headcount stood at 86,482 at 2022-end, up 20% from a year ago.

Reuters reported that the tech industry has laid off nearly 290,000 workers since the start of 2022, with about 40% of them coming this year, according to layoff-tracking site layoffs.fyi.

Mark Zuckerberg’s tech company made this known in an emailed statement on Friday, according to Reuters.

“We’re exploring a standalone decentralized social network for sharing text updates. We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests,” a Meta spokesperson told Reuters in an emailed statement.

Meta’s app will be built on a parallel structure that powers Mastodon, a Twitter-like service that was launched in 2016.

The agreements were made at a meeting between the representatives of Meta and Google and the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.

The Federal Government on Friday in Abuja sealed agreements with tech giants, Meta and Google on the protection of the integrity of the forthcoming general elections.

The agreements were reached at a meeting between the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed and representatives of Meta and Google.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Meta is the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp while Google owns YouTube, G-mail and Google Search.

At the meeting which was at the instance of the minister, the tech giants agreed to comply with four demands by the federal government.

The tech giants agreed to work with the government in flagging and bringing down posts that constituted fake news and disinformation in their platforms.

They also agreed to work with the security agencies to bring down posts capable of inciting violence before, during and after the elections.

It was also agreed that election results not originating from official sources, should be flagged as unverified by the tech giants’ platforms.

They also agreed to make posts from official channels, like the Ministry of Information and Culture, Independent National Electoral Commission, National Orientation Agency, etc., prominent on their platforms.

Earlier, the minister underscored the importance of the elections to the country and the assurance by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), to the nation and the international community on a free, fair, credible and peaceful polls.

He also noted that the use of social media was a critical factor in the national elections of countries, including Nigeria with a predominantly youthful population.

Mohammed, however, expressed concern that 22 days before the elections, there has been a noticeable increase in the use of fake news and disinformation on social media platforms.

He said the purveyors of fake news and disinformation were those bent on hindering the success of the elections and throwing the nation into crisis.

The minister said: “There has been a gross abuse of social media platforms to purvey fake news and disinformation ahead of the elections.

“These unscrupulous people are resorting to the use of parody accounts, cloning of reputable media platforms and the use of deep fakes to carry out their nefarious activities.

“For example, candidates’ campaign speeches are doctored to portray them in bad light, video clips and pictures of campaign rallies are tampered with to make them look poorly attended.

“Fake or unscientific opinion polls are concocted, while threats of violence in certain parts of the country are exaggerated.

“All of these are then circulated via social media to a wide audience, with the aim of making their target candidates look bad, influencing public perception or even suppressing votes in certain areas.

“We have therefore invited you, platform owners, here so we can work together to reduce these negative tendencies before, during and after the forthcoming elections.”

The Head, Public Policy (Anglophone West Africa) at Meta, Adaora Ikenze, thanked the minister for initiating the meeting and assured that the requests by the federal government would be heeded.

She said that Meta had set up the Election Protection Operating Centre which worked 24 hours with relevant stakeholders to ensure the integrity of the polls.

Ikenze added that they partnered with Independent National Electoral Commission and Civil Society Groups, to provide information on the polls and as well engaged facts checkers to flag unwholesome and fake content.

Speaking in the same vein, the Policy and Government Affairs Lead at Google Dawn Dimowo, assured that they would follow up with the government team, so that they could flag any content escalated to be problematic.

Dimowo said they had a process to direct users of their platforms to authentic election result channels.

She assured that any unverified sources that post the results of the elections would be brought down.

The operational changes by Sama begins March 2023, after the content moderation terms of service with Facebook come to an end, as the company would be moving away from policing harmful content to focusing solely on computer vision data annotation, otherwise known as data labelling.

The move is set to cut off 200 staff from the company and leaving several employees without work permits.

Meta first contracted Sama in 2007, hiring about 1,500 workers for data labelling and training its artificial intelligence, but their role was later changed to content moderation.

“The current economic climate requires more efficient and streamlined business operations,” Sama said as quoted by Financial Times, encouraging employees to apply for vacancies at its offices in Kenya or Uganda.

The news comes two months after Meta announced it would be cutting its global headcount by 13 per cent, or around 11,000 employees, as the social media company suffers from falling revenue, a slump in digital advertising and fierce competition from rivals including TikTok.

Facebook said it will continue facilitating Sama’s data labelling services, adding that a new content moderation partner is in place.

According to the founder Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, this is “the most difficult changes we’ve made in Meta’s history.”

So far this year, Meta has identified more than 400 “malicious” apps tailored for smartphones powered by Apple or Android software and available at the Apple and Google app stores, director of threat disruption David Agranovich said during a briefing.

“These apps were listed on the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store and disguised as photo editors, games, VPN services, business apps and other utilities to trick people into downloading them,” Meta said in a blog post.

The apps often ask people to login with their Facebook account information to use promised features, stealing usernames and passwords if entered, according to Meta’s security team.

“They are just trying to trick people into entering in their login information in a way that enables hackers to access their accounts,” Agranovich said of the apps.

“We will notify one million users that they may have been exposed to these applications; that is not to say they have been compromised.”

More than 40 percent of the apps Meta listed involved ways to edit or manipulate images, and some were as seemingly simple as using smartphones as flashlights.

“Our sense is these types of malicious app developers try to target multiple services,” Agranovich said, noting the app creators are likely after passwords to more than just Facebook accounts.

“The targeting here seemed to be relatively indiscriminate — get people to download the applications around the world in an attempt to get access to as many login credentials as possible.”

Meta said that it shared what it discovered with Apple and Google, who control what is offered at their respective app shops and each vet offerings.

Apple did not respond to questions regarding whether it took action against any of the apps Meta deemed malicious.

But Google said that most of the apps Meta flagged had already been identified and removed from the Play store by its own vetting systems.

“All of the apps identified in the report are no longer available on Google Play,” a spokesperson told AFP.

“Users are also protected by Google Play Protect, which blocks these apps on Android.”

According to a statement on Tuesday by the apex regulatory body for Nigeria’s advertising ecosystem, ARCON is seeking a declaration among others that the continued publication and exposure of various advertisements directed at the Nigerian market through Facebook and Instagram platforms by Meta Platforms Incorporated without ensuring the same is vetted and approved before exposure is illegal, unlawful and a violation of the extant advertising Law in Nigeria.

ARCON stated that Meta Platforms Incorporated’s continued exposure of unvetted adverts had also led to loss of revenue to the Federal Government.

ARCON is seeking N30bn in sanction for the violation of the advertising laws and for loss of revenue as a result of Meta Incorporated’s continued exposure of unapproved adverts on it’s platforms.

The statement read in part, “ARCON reiterates that it would not permit unethical and irresponsible advertising on the Nigeria’s advertising space.”

According to ARCON, the Council is not regulating the online media space. Rather, it’s focus is on advertising and marketing communications on the online platforms in line with its establishment Act.

A Meta spokesperson said the post was removed “for violating our policies against inciting and supporting violence”.

But in a separate post on Wednesday that remains online, Abiy vowed: “to bury this enemy with our blood and bones and uplift Ethiopia’s dignity”.

In September the US State Department condemned a speech by a prominent Abiy adviser which compared Tigrayan rebels to the Devil and said they should be “the last of their kind”.

Washington has been among the most vocal critics of Ethiopia’s conduct of the year-long war in the country’s north.

But despite repeated calls for an end to violence, militant rhetoric has persisted from both sides.

Abiy’s government has been locked in a war for the past year with the TPLF, which dominated national politics before he took office in 2018.

The 2019 Nobel Peace laureate promised a swift victory, but by late June the rebels had retaken most of Tigray and expanded into the neighbouring regions of Afar and Amhara.

The TPLF announced late Wednesday it had reached the town of Kemissie in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, some 325 kilometres (200 miles) northeast of the capital.

Spokesman Getachew Reda said the TPLF was working in the area alongside the Oromo Liberation Army rebel group, which on Wednesday predicted Addis Ababa could fall in a matter of weeks.

But a senior official from Washington’s humanitarian arm USAID warned of grave repercussions for Ethiopia’s already acute aid problems. We can only assume that any march towards Addis would spread increased displacement, increased need and increased suffering for the Ethiopian people. It would certainly increase the need for humanitarian assistance while also complicating the ability to provide that assistance.”