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Is Facebook, a major conduit for political ideas in Kashmir, about to be banned? Since 2012, the internet has been shut down 28 times in the Valley. On April 17, a police order went out, jamming 3G and 4G mobile internet networks. Now, rumours are rife that social networking sites, especially Facebook, may be shut down for months.

Police officials said the measure is being discussed since February. According to a source in the government who did not want to be identified, many in the administration are in favour of such restrictions. However, a decision is yet to be taken.

Both the police and the political executive believe that social media acts as a force multiplier during agitations, causing mass anger by instantly relaying unconfirmed news. In the wake of unrest triggered by militant leader Burhan Wanis killing in July, mobile internet was cut off for nearly five months. Since most Kashmiris rely on mobile internet rather than broadband, this meant restricted access to social media sites. Yet, during those months, people across the Valley largely managed to remain aware of the events.

Over the last few years, Facebook has emerged as an important medium to express dissent in Kashmir, with political cartoons and pictures of protests leading to intense debates and discussions.

For Suhail Naqshbandi, editorial cartoonist at Greater Kashmir, social media has expanded the audience for his work. My job, as a cartoonist, gets accentuated by social media, he said. Its a big forum for discussion and a lot of feedback. It gives me an idea about the direction in which people are thinking. I keep that in mind. And its important to have discussions.

Social media, Naqshbandi said, has helped bridge the gap in the narratives that people outside the state receive about Kashmir. People from outside have a different response, he said. They get provoked, they troll me but somewhere it hits them, makes them write something.

Of late, the youth have taken to relaying live through social media gunfights and stone-pelting. The latest ban on 3G and 4G internet, in fact, is aimed at such livestreams and sharing of videos.

Freedom of expression is constricted in many ways in the Valley bans imposed by the state, political pressures, social and religious taboos. For many, the proposed ban on the internet will be a blow to one of the last, relatively free spaces in which residents could vent their feelings. One of the many destructive effects of the conflict in the Valley has been on mental health, and social media even allowed a means to bypass the taboos associated with counselling.

Arif Khan, a psychologist based in Srinagar, and his associate run a Facebook group that allows them to stay in touch with patients and respond to their concerns. Many people cant go for counselling daily, Khan said. On an average, he responds to 10 people daily. After the internet disruption, they have been unable to respond to those who seek help.

Several Facebook users posted their Twitter usernames, believing that this forum will not be banned, as well as links to their personal blogs. These would become the means to stay in touch if Facebook is indeed shut down.

Khan tried using an internet caf to get around the restrictions. But the caf owner, wary after the recent furore over posts and videos, was reluctant to let him use social networking sites. It was only after Khan explained why he wanted to use Facebook that the owner relented.

Facebook has helped reinforce a sense of community, especially in times of distress, through both public conversations and those in private groups. We cant build a community on Gmail, said a government employee who did not wish to be identified. There are [also] people who do not use it for [political] debates, there are people who use it for keeping in touch with people with whom you cant meet daily. In Kashmir, it flares up sentiments but it also provides a vent to people. If you block this again, Kashmiris will feel choked.

Many people are of the opinion that the ban, if implemented, would be counterproductive and only magnify rumours. According to Naqshbandi, netizens will find other ways to express themselves. You cannot suppress opinion. Its like water, it will find its way, he said.

Still, Kashmiris are bracing for a ban. Several Facebook users posted their Twitter usernames, believing that this forum will not be banned, as well as links to their personal blogs. These would become the means to stay in touch if Facebook is indeed shut down.

There are other ways, too. On April 9, the day bye-election was held to the Srinagar parliamentary constituency, the internet was shut down. For those who wanted to stay updated about the events, it meant a return to phone text messages.

This is not something new, the state government employee pointed out. Earlier [under the Omar Abdullah government] there was an SMS ban when SMS groups were popular. Now if there is a Facebook ban, people will find alternatives to it.

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Blank out: Why Facebook may be indefinitely banned in Kashmir - Scroll.in

Social networking is a competition of sorts with your friends. In recognition of that, Zynga is launching a new mobile party game called GIFs Against Friends for you to play with your friends via iMessages.

In this game, up to 32 players submit GIFs, or photos with basic animations, on a particular topic. A judge votes on which one best represents the topic.

The new game is part of a collection of 12 iMessage app games that Zynga has launched, including Words With Friends. Zynga developed the game in collaboration with Tenor, the fast-growing mobile GIF sharing platform. The title is available to play today within Apples iMessage app store.

Its a different kind of game, and it was inspired by all of the ways that people are using GIFs to express themselves.

Above: Zyngas GIFs Against Friends is an iMessage game.

Image Credit: Zynga

As one of the foremost game publishers on the App Store for iMessage, were constantly looking for new ways to innovate on how mobile users are playing and communicating, said Mark Kantor, General manager at Zynga, in a statement. GIFs Against Friends is a brand-new social game thats perfect to play right within an iMessage conversation. Were proud to partner with Tenor, the leading mobile GIF platform, in reimagining how people are connecting by bringing this engaging, entertaining GIF competition directly into the conversations players are already having with their friends and family.

GIFs Against Friends curates the perfect GIF through a deep integration with Tenors full search applications programming interface (API), allowing players to access the entire collection of hilarious, iconic GIFs.

Above: Zyngas GIFs Against Friends pits friends against each other in a photo GIF competition.

Image Credit: Zynga

In GIFs Against Friends, players kick off the GIF gameplay by sending a pre-selected or custom prompt to friends directly in Messages. Once theyve received the prompt, up to 32 players can anonymously submit their choice for the most fitting GIF to the entire group. The group chat judge then selects the funniest, most relevant or undeniably accurate GIF and crowns the ultimate GIF champion. At the end of each round, the winning GIF is shared within the iMessage conversation for the whole group to see.

Messaging is quickly becoming a primary way people communicate and socialize with friends, and Tenor is defining a visual language for this new medium, said Frank Nawabi, cofounder and head of business development at Tenor, in a statement. GIFs Against Friends is a great example of how Tenor helps people communicate their thoughts and feelings, better than words ever could.

The new iMessage app taps into the Tenor Emotional Graph, which is built on our 200-plus million daily GIF searches, Nawabi said.

GIFs Against Friends is available to play for free today on the App Store for iMessage.

Across our franchises, were committed to driving organic growth through social innovation, said Frank Gibeau, CEO of Zynga, in a recent earnings call. Last month, we became one of the first gaming companies to innovate on the App Store for iMessage with the launch of our Words With Friends iMessage app. While its not a major audience or revenue driver for the Words franchise, the experience has created more ways to engage existing consumers and bring new players to our network.

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Zynga's GIFs Against Friends is a big social GIF contest - VentureBeat

Narcissism and social networking -- ScienceDaily Science Daily Social networks are an ideal stage for narcissists to showcase themselves. Accordingly, a lot of people with narcissistic traits are drawn to these platforms as a ... and more »

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Narcissism and social networking -- ScienceDaily - Science Daily

LEONID BERSHIDSKY

Last updated09:53, April 20 2017

Reuters

Founder of Telegram Pavel Durov: "It's pointless and time-consuming to maintain increasingly obsolete friend lists on public networks."

ANALYSIS: The man who set up the most popular social network in Russia axed all of his online friends in one fell swoop this week. Having them, he wrote, was so 2010.

That may be a sign of the times: Predictions from a few years ago that social networks would lose ground to messenger apps appear to be coming true.

Pavel Durov has often been called Russia's Mark Zuckerberg because he set up a Facebook clone called Vkontakte, which quickly beat the original in Russia because it became the medium for sharing pirated movies and music.

Durov lost control of the network long ago, and the piracy is somewhat less rampant, but Vkontakte is still far ahead of the competition in its home country.

READ MORE: *Minimalist's guide to social media *Should you quit social media for your career? *The rules of sifting through someone's profile on social media *Why celebrities are leaving social media *The two reasons I have grown to hate social media

Durov, meanwhile, has funded the development of a messenger app, Telegram.

Based in Berlin and structured as a non-profit, the messenger has about 100 million monthly active users - formidable yet far less than industry leaders such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger (who claim a billion users each).

He explained his decision to purge: "Everyone a person needs has long been on messengers. It's pointless and time-consuming to maintain increasingly obsolete friend lists on public networks. Reading other people's news is brain clutter. To clear out room for the new, one shouldn't fear getting rid of old baggage."

Durov is right when he says everyone is on messengers these days.

Back in 2015, messengers overtook social networks in terms of total active users. And back in 2014, when Facebook separated Messenger from its main offering, Zuckerberg himself acknowledged the trend, saying that "messaging is one of the few things people do more than social networking".

And the messengers' growth is faster than that of social networks: Facebook Messenger's mobile audience increased 36 per cent in the between July 2015 and June 2016, while Facebook's grew 19 per cent, according to Comscore's mobile app report.

By measures that register actual human engagement- rather than fake accounts and bot activity - Facebook does not seem to be growing at all.

In 2016, its users generated about 25 per cent less original content than in 2015. The time users spend on Facebook dropped from 24 hours in mid-2015 to 18.9 hours in February, Comscore reported.

There are no reliable data on why humans are less enthusiastic about social networks today than a couple of years ago.

But chances are it has to do with fatigue from living in a public cage, irritation with the growing amount of invasive advertising, perhaps belated privacy concerns since the advertising often seems to follow browsing histories and the content of supposedly private messages.

Then there's the prevalence of low quality content and the potential of being confronted by disturbing acts of video streaming.

Messengers are a safer ground: They're about personal communication, not broadcasting.

Zuckerberg, who has been touring the USin what some see as a pre-presidential campaign and others as a series of focus groups to turn Facebook into a community-building tool, appears to have seen this trend coming long ago. Facebook, after all, owns the two most popular messenger apps.

If the numbers keep shifting from social networks to messengers, advertisers will figure out that something is wrong with the platforms they've been paying.

YouTube's advertising boycott is likely just a precursor of things to come, including better analysis of usage and engagement metrics. When the ad-based social network model is challenged - or even before that - Facebook will be forced to monetise its messenger offerings. That may undermine the quality of these products, as advertising did with the social networks.

Snap, now forced to make money as a public company, may already be experiencing the fallout. Time users spend on it is declining.

After having hijacked user attention and advertising money from professional content producers, social networks may be facing a reality check.

As people figure out what they want from the digital revolution, there may be far less money in facilitating content sharing than in creating the content itself.

Instead of submitting to the mercy of Facebook's massive audience, traditional publishers should have faith that the public will always demand professionally crafted content, no matter where it is shared.

The social networks may look like all-powerful intermediaries now, but they may not be around forever.

-Bloomberg

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Social networks are fading as messenger apps rise up - Stuff.co.nz

Shoes of Prey co-founder Mike Knapp is embarking on his next startup adventure with a new experimental social networking app designed to spark real world conversations and connections with people.

Knapp says he has designed Mottle, a social networking app launched on Wednesday, with one core goal: To drive human connection.

Once you download the app, you login with Facebook and you can see a list of people ranked based on their interests and how close they are to you and also theyre age, Knapp tells StartupSmart.

The only communication possible on Mottleis to send a hello, after which users can speak with each other in a phone chat through the app. Once users hang up, they can rate each other.

People who are inappropriate will have this reflected in their rating, he says.

I wanted a way to be able to have conversations with new people easily, Knapp says.

Its a very experimental app Im hoping that people will enjoy it and use it.

Knapp came up with the idea for it while travelling and meeting different people when he realisedthere needs to be a more meaningful solution to connecting human beings in an increasingly digital and detached world.

Im very interested in human connection and particularly as robotics takes over more jobs and displaces a lot of the economic activity in the world I worry about what will people do, Knapp says.

And talking to each other is something were uniquely capable of doing.

Theres a lot of pain and suffering in the world. My grandmother is in her early 90s and a lot of her close friends have died and having someone to talk to is really important to her.

Knapp believes the app could also be used as an alternative to dating tools like Tinder.

He says Mottle is a low cost way of getting to know someone before wasting time and money on a date with someone you have no real sense of.

I developed it over the last two months pretty quickly and Ive been working on it sort of seven days a week, he says.

Considering the apps experimental nature in getting people to speak to strangers in real life, Knapp says it may be a long journey for people to develop trust in Mottle and see its benefits.

I dont expect it will be a raging success on day one, he says.

However, during Shoes of Preys early days, he says people were similarly reserved about its potential.

When we started Shoes of Prey, people said thats crazy that youre going to design your own shoes on the internet, he says.

Today, the company is a world-renowned brand and it raised $21.3 million in funding last year.

Theres a lot of parallels once you do something the second time, youre familiar with the doubts that can set in and sometimes the hard work thats required to get past certain checkpoints [like registering a business and domain names], he says.

I felt sort of some of the same emotions and feelings [like] youre always doubting is this a good idea? And you talk to people and they think oh, thats a bit strange.

Despite this, Knapp says its crucial to turn up each day and after building Shoes of Prey, he says its exciting to be at the start of a growth journey again.

One learning from Shoes of Prey is dont jump too quickly into being international really work on the core product first, he says.

Knapp hopes the five countries Mottle is available in now will be a good user base to start.

These include Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada and the UK.

While Knapp doesnt have any strong plans for monetising Mottle yet, his aim now is to bring its vision to life and share it with the world.

I want to help people connect with each other [and] to create a sense of community how that translates into a business, Im not sure at this stage, he says.

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Shoes of Prey co-founder Mike Knapp launches social network Mottle, but it won't be a raging success just yet - SmartCompany.com.au