Dheeraj Kalgutkar

  Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even Reddit have suspended or banned accounts of or related to Donald Trump. You want to believe in it or not, the sad truth is Donald Trump is President of the United States of America. He is the most powerful man on the earth. And God did not make him this powerful nor did he acquire Aladdin's lamp, scratched it and become President. People, a large number of them, voted him into this office. They chose him to be their president. And by these platforms, he was reaching his audience. And that platform has been snatched from him now. And this snatching was not achieved after thorough parliamentary or congress' dialogue or arguments in court, this pulling away of carpet from underneath his motormouth-empire was decided by few men behind the closed-doors of these platforms in total secrecy. Their decisions are beyond the purview of public scrutiny. There is no set of logic that applies to what went behind these decisions. This is, believe it or ...

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash We have long-established that Facebook, that big mammoth of an organization today knows more about us than we do ourselves. The feat has lost its vanity, it isn't cool anymore. It is not a fact that you clap to when a magician or card-reader reveals something about you that you yourself might have overlooked. You submit voluntarily to them, not so much to Facebook. Facebook today stores far greater information about you than the tidbits you provide to it yourself. And it uses that enormous information to decide what you like, what you might be interested in, what kind of deaths will disturb you more, what news you might be interested to read, what videos pick your interest, which political party you might vote to, are you a fence-sitter, essentially it knows you. You might be confused about what you wish to eat for dinner tonight but I bet Facebook if given a chance will tell you exactly what will interest you at the dinner table. Th...

As if gate-keeping was not bad enough, the big boys are planning to be our referees now Remember that ‘breaking news’ when we woke up to Edward Snowden claiming Osama Bin Laden Is “Alive And Well In The Bahamas”? Well, that was fake news. So is Donald Trump, President of The United States of America claiming “72% of refugees admitted into U.S. (2/3 -2/11) during COURT BREAKDOWN are from 7 countries: SYRIA, IRAQ, SOMALIA, IRAN, SUDAN, LIBYA & YEMEN.” Then there’s news about Russia sending Snowden to US as “gift” to Trump which Moscow has recently denied . These examples are but recent and sort of tip-of-the-iceberg of what is now a behemoth empire of fake and clickbait ‘news’ business. It’s everywhere. From Facebook which can be called the mine of it all to Google to any other service you use. This is not just confined to news about Snowden or Trump’s lies but there are massacres ‘happening’ where there are none to people getting elected for NASA when there’s ...

S napchat as we know it is over. No no, it has nothing to do with recent hullabaloo over Instagram copying Snapchat. Well, you agree it or not, they did do copy-paste there. That’s past now. Let’s get back to what Snapchat has just attempted and in all cases this is huge. Before we dive straight to the main changeover, let’s take a moment to mention about Memories which Snapchat offered in their last update. In a real change from their ‘here and now’ approach, with Memories they attempted to provide us save option where we can save our favorite snaps. But that wasn’t all its purpose. It also had something to do with their new offering. No, this isn’t about another wacky filter! Snapchat Inc Is Now Snap Inc Snapchat Inc. was the company that offered Snapchat, their only product so far. Wondering why they changed from Snapchat to Snap? It has something to do with a certain product, a hardware product. Snapchat is aiming to move past the app store with their new h...

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (TRAI's) much awaited Prohibition of  Discriminatory  Tariffs for Data Services Regulation, 2016, is being hailed for its support of Net Neutrality. In fact, some have gone on to christen it as the law that is all powerful than what the FCC passed in the US. The order comes nearly two months after TRAI floated a paper asking whether differential tariffs should be allowed for data services linked to specific content. This paper was linked to one of the key principles of Net Neutrality - that all data should be treated equally, with no preference in speed of pricing to any particular set of contact. But does it achieve all that, and is it really that strong a law as few want us to believe it to be? First and foremost, sorry, hold your horses, it is just an order not law and in the absence of law the aggrieved parties (read telcos) can question the order in High Court under section 227 of the Constitution. And for...

Is it really the philanthropy to connect the not connected or just a clever idea to expand its customer base? Internet! Meet your new gatekeeper – Internet.org is here to dive you into a world of Facebook and other sites which are necessarily approved by Facebook itself in the veil of free internet, wait there’s more to the story, you’ll be warned that they’ll incur extra charges  in case you try to explore outside of the bubble served by Internet.org. So no clicks on links, no twitter, and no googling, all you do is Bing! For starters who don’t know what the writer is talking about in above lines, Internet.org in their own terms is a Facebook-led initiative bringing together technology leaders, nonprofits and local communities to connect the two thirds of the world that doesn't have internet access. They say their motive is to make Internet affordable to the masses, essentially the first time users who have not yet experienced what it means to browse ...

An odd 'like' on Facebook and you are on door of a shadowy police lock-up, an odd tweet and you are beaten on a ghastly night-street. A fire-ball comment over some old-but-always-in-news-issue and you're slapped in your own office! The largest democracy of world, the one that taught non-violence and peace to wider audience has travelled all this far to a gleam position where it's all about 'them' and 'us'. In India of today, you are no more allowed to have a opinion of yours nor are you allowed to not have any opinion and be a fence-sitter either! Impatience and intolerance have become keys that define our lives. The vicious 'them vs. us' attitude has plagued the very conscience of India that once gave call for eternal harmony of one and all. We have started to overlook the ideas 'they' have or the 'solutions' they possess. Be it Prashant Bhushan who is facing public ire today over his comment in 2011 where he suggested t...

BEWARE NETIZEN'S!   IT'S TIME YOU THINK THRICE OR AT LEAST TWICE before hitting 'like' on social networks leave alone the status update or tweet!!   Yes! Fresh case of misusing IT act of 2008 is from the state of Maharashtra where two young girls from Palghar have been arrested over a comment and subsequent 'like' on Facebook over 'Mumbai Shutdown.' Leave alone the free speech or freedom of expression of which 'constitution of India' boasts every now and then! Here's an example where even a comment or 'liking' of it could leave you tugged behind bars in the economical capital of this nation.   Forget free speech. A simple comment on Facebook and what they got was a slap in the face -Read Hindustan Times.   Meanwhile, it's the same India which world refers to as beholder of 'largest democracy.' Then, has the largest democracy lost its cool over not-so-common criticism in setups like this that it takes it no ...

Courtesy: www.mashable.com With IP addresses now depleted, the Internet Society is leading the launch of IPv6 to allow the web to continue growing. Without adopting IPv6, people surfing the web will have to go through a transitional gateway before entering a non- updated site using IPv4, making the experience slower. On launch day Wednesday, website owners are encouraged to permanently enable IPv6 — the next generation of Internet protocol. "World IPv6 Launch Day is a lot larger than people understand," John Curran, president and CEO of the American Registry for Internet Numbers, told Mashable in an email. "IPv6 is the single largest upgrade in the history of the Internet. It's not a small decision for the major content providers to turn on IPv6 and leave it on. "Going forward, Internet users will be forced to go through transition gateways t...