Musk Blasts Twitter’s Team For Being Too Intense When Suspending Fake Accounts On The App

Elon Musk is blasting out the teams responsible for suspending fake accounts on the Twitter platform, calling them out as being too intense in their behavior.

The billionaire spoke out on the matter during the later hours of Sunday night where he says the team that was responsible for getting rid of spam and even bot accounts was just too harsh in their ruling.

He even highlighted how such suspensions were not required but now, he hopes to move forward with a more chill or laid-back attitude.

The news came after one Twitter user sent out complaints about the platform suspending several genuine accounts that were seen putting out messages of positivity as well as fun memes for better engagement.

But by suspending such accounts, Musk knows that it would drastically affect users who work so hard to build up their followers and accounts. Hence, such behavior causes the number of followers to drop overnight.

Elon Musk’s major issue has really opened up a new debate because we’ve seen the billionaire outline on numerous occasions that he wouldn’t be able to acquire Twitter because the number of fake accounts was just too many.

Now, he’s taking a completely different approach by putting a loose grip on keeping such accounts at bay. What happened to Musk trying to authentically the real users on the app as humans, was just one of the many comments that people were curious about, related to this topic.

In a recently published interview with leading media outlet Reuters, Elon Musk was mentioned to be a leader whose top priority was nothing but platform safety. And for that reason, he was not going to make the app rely more on the likes of AI technology to spot and address various types of harmful content online.

Let’s not forget how in the past few weeks, we’ve seen several users of the app that were left-wing activists having accounts suspended in an unfair manner. And that was related to the fact that the company’s team that handled trust and safety was decimated.

Then last week, we saw a new report in the name of Twitter Files get published which outlined how Twitter prevented content related to Hunter Biden’s laptop from getting published, right before the commencement of the US Elections that were held in 2020.

Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

This Poll Suggests Guest Posting Is Not Dead Yet

Guest posting used to be a mainstay of SEO, but Google started to pull back on its prominence back in 2014. After many years of punishing sites that continued to use guest posting, Google managed to reduce it a fair bit and give rise to many other forms of SEO that were meant to improve the quality of content that is featured on its SERP. As recently as 2021, Google highlighted its numerous systems that are meant to detect guest posting and discourage it.

In spite of the fact that this is the case, many SEO professionals are continuing to use guest posts to boost their SERP rankings. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that almost 32% of the people who responded to a recent Twitter poll said that they still use guest posting, and just under 12% said that they use it on occasion.

It should be mentioned that a plurality of voters, or 44.9% to be precise, said no to the question that was asked of them. Regardless of that, hundreds of people said that guest posting is a major part of their SEO strategy with all things having been considered and taken into account.

The lack of credence that SEO professionals are giving to Google’s guidelines are interesting to say the least. It suggests that people care less about these guidelines than might have been the case otherwise, and they may have other metrics that they are considering which are worth the lower SERP rankings that they would be forced to tolerate.

There may be a lot more at play here than meet’s the eye. Guest posting could be beneficial because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up driving user traffic despite it working against the site from an SEO point of view. Google may not be the all powerful content hub that it and many others consider it to be, and that could have a huge impact on how people deal with their SEO needs in the future.

Read next: What Are the Biggest SEO Challenges in 2023? This Survey Reveals the Answers
by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

Intrusive Ads and Fake Apps Are Making Apple’s App Store Worse

There are two main app stores that people can download their favorite apps from, with Apple’s App Store winning out over Google’s Play Store in most metrics. In spite of the fact that this is the case, there have been a lot of changes that were made to the App Store that have made it worse than might have been the case otherwise. Intrusive ads are becoming ever more prevalent, and there has also ben a worrying abundance of knock off apps.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that Apple has clearly been placing a lot more emphasis on driving up revenues. Unfortunately, this is coming at the expense of the user experience. 15 years on from the launch of the App Store, the quality of the apps that are available has gone downhill, and what’s worse is that the ads have become a lot more intrusive than they used to be as well.

A good example of this can be seen when people search for gambling recovery apps. Gambling can be a serious addiction, but people who searched for recovery apps ended up being shown gambling apps in the “You Might Also Like” subsection. That is dangerous because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up making gambling addicts go down the rabbit hole again, and while Apple took those ads down it still indicates that the tech juggernaut is being a bit too lax about the ads that it shows to its App Store users.

Back when the App Store was first launched, Apple CEO Steve Jobs prided it on being entirely devoid of ads. That has clearly changed with all things having been considered and taken into account, and it is a huge marker that Apple is putting the user experience in jeopardy in its search for higher rates of revenue growth.

Apple’s products have generally been seeing a bit of a decline in what makes them unique. The previous three iterations of the iPhone are quite similar to each other, although many wouldn’t have guessed that given the dramatic difference in their price points.

Apple has been hiking its prices for quite some time now, and it is making its product line less unique and innovative. A company must always balance its need to grow with providing an excellent experience to all users, and it is high time that Apple came to terms with that. If Apple fails to make the necessary changes, other companies might surpass it both in terms of hardware as well as software.

Read next: Apple Officially Unveiled The Name of Its AR/VR Headset and the Registration of the Product Has Begun
by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

Facebook May Soon Become News-Free In The US As Meta Threatens To Pull The Plug

Meta is very keen on making its leading app Facebook news free as the company announced today that it could soon be pulling the plug.

The tech giant sent out threats related to the app in the US as it is very unhappy with the new law that gives local media outlets more power to take a share of news content shared on the app’s feeds.

The news comes after such a law had been passed in nations like Australia which led to a temporary suspension of the sort in the previous year.

Moreover, Meta could be seen mentioning and boasting how it is doing a great job at enhancing traffic toward various struggling media outlets.

It hopes publishers start to understand how content is placed on this app since it provides them with all sorts of benefits.

The current law in discussion at this moment is called the JCPA was first outlined by Minnesota’s Congress and had even received plenty of bipartisan support along the way.

This ends up providing publishers and some broadcasters with some intense powers to create deals with various social media apps to attain bigger shares of advertising revenue.

Remember, media firms are not backing down with their own claims against Meta. They feel the latter manages to churn out huge sums of revenue through news content that’s shared on the app.

During stressful times like the Pandemic, so many local news firms really struggled as tech giants such as Meta benefited from huge gains in profits. But Meta argues how such a narrative could be wrong and hence mentioned that Meta diverts traffic toward the right sources.

Meanwhile, we’ve got Meta’s spokesperson mentioning how Congress manages to pass out a journalism bill as an integral component of the legislation linked to national security. And hence that would be forced when considering the removal of news content from the app as a whole.

Then we’ve got Meta sending out arguments related to how news sharing through its platform on Facebook only gives it a fraction of the revenue.

When something similar was passed in countries like Australia last year, it was shocking to see Meta respond by shutting down Facebook in the country to deal with the matter. But when there was immense criticism around the globe regarding such behavior, it was left with no choice but to get back on board.

Read next: New Law May Soon Force Google And Meta To Pay Local Media Outlets For News Published
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Google Owns 30% of All Online Third Party Trackers

By this point everyone is familiar with the reality that any website they end up visiting is likely going to be tracking them to one extent or another. In spite of the fact that this is the case, most users are not aware of just how many trackers the average website might have. New research from Nord VPN has revealed that the average website can have as many as 48 trackers that are used to harvest sensitive user data, and social media sites are even worse.

Social media websites were found to have an astonishing 160 trackers embedded into their code, whereas health websites came in at a distant second with 46. This seems to suggest that the average would be a lot lower if social media sites were taken out of the equation. The number of trackers on websites has skyrocketed as of late, and that does not bode well for the future of online privacy.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that 30% of all trackers were found to belong to Google. Another 11% were being used by Facebook, with Adobe responsible for an additional 7%. This reveals that the same old players are continuing to use trackers to keep track of the activities of users online.

Such widespread collection of data can be harmful because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up compiling into one place where malicious actors can get their hands on it. Users must be educated about the sheer amount of trackers that they will be confronted with so that they can take the appropriate privacy precautions.

Any site that you visit will be trying to collect some data from you. Using a VPN can help to mask your identity, which makes them useful online tools for users with all things having been considered and taken into account. If you have noticed unusually personalized ads online, chances are that you went to a website that has an inordinate amount of cookies or third party trackers.

Read next: 72% of Online Trackers Come From Google Alone, New Study Shows
by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

What Are the Biggest SEO Challenges in 2023? This Survey Reveals the Answers

Coming up with a marketing strategy for the next year can be challenging due to the various moving parts that are going to be at play. In spite of the fact that this is the case, marketers can manage to develop an effective strategy by predicting the problems that might set them back over the course of the subsequent year. Search Engine Journal just put out their State of SEO report, and the findings from this report can help SEO experts to uncover the best practices for 2023.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that this report included a survey which showed what problems SEO professionals themselves say that they are facing. The most pertinent problem of all might be a lack of resources, with 14.9% of the SEO professionals that responded to this survey stating that it was a major issue.

12.3% also cited problems with strategies and 11.9% highlighted the difficulties they are experiencing with scaling. 11.2% still think that the pandemic is having an adverse effect and 10.7% are having trouble aligning their goals with that of other departments within the organization.

Interestingly, budget cuts, which were the biggest problem cited by SEO professionals back in 2021, fell to sixth place this year with all things having been considered and taken into account. That suggests that budgets are becoming higher than might have been the case otherwise, although some resources are clearly unrelated to budgets because SEO professionals are still saying they don’t have enough of them.

Another aspect of this report that is important to highlight is the section where survey respondents were asked about major industry shifts and threats to their profession. Machine Learning and AI came out on top because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up making their jobs obsolete whilst providing lower quality results. 18.7% of survey respondents selected this option, and almost as many, or 18% to be precise, said that Google Updates might make the industry look entirely different in the near future.

The deprecation of third party cookies is also continuing to cause seismic shifts in the industry. 13.9% of survey respondents said that the lack of third party tracking is posing a significant challenge to them, with 12.9% citing Google’s Zero Click Pages. 11.5% also said that there was more competition for talent in the industry which may end up harming it in the long run.

The emergence of AI can be a particularly pertinent factor in the future of SEO. While it might not be able to replace human SEO professionals entirely, it will automate several processes and make them a lot easier to do. Alternatively, some might try to automate the entire SEO process which could lead to industry wide layoffs. The SEO industry appears to be in a constant state of flux, and 2023 is not shaping up to be any different. Decisions made by major players impact people that are even tangentially related to those industries, and that can be seen in Apple’s deprecating of third party cookies which SEO professionals are still sore over.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

37% of Women Still Don’t Have Internet Access in 2022

It is hard to conceive of a world without internet, but in spite of the fact that this is the case there are still billions of people all around the world who don’t have access to it. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) projects that there are still 2.7 billion people who don’t have a reliable internet connection, and it turns out that women are a lot more affected by this with all things having been considered and taken into account.

According to the findings that this organization put out, about 31% of men don’t have internet access. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that this number is much higher for women, hovering at around the 37% mark. That means that there are 259 million more women than men who are unable to use the internet, and that might be making the gender gap larger than might have been the case otherwise.

The difference is much starker in developing countries. In Africa, for example, just 34% of women have internet access compared to 45% of men that have it. The gap is even larger in the Arab world, with a ten point difference being noted between the 75% of men who have a reliable internet connection and just 65% of women who can say the same.

On average, 21% of women are able to use the internet in low income countries. This seems to suggest that certain higher income countries in Africa might be skewing the numbers, and there might be whole areas where women are restricted from the wealth of information that only the internet can provide.

Women make up half of the global population, yet they are 18% more likely to not have internet access. That is dangerous because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up widening the already broad gender gap and making it increasingly difficult for women to achieve an equal and level playing field that can help them get on par with the men they are competing with.

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World