Actor Vijay’s selfie with fans most retweeted on Twitter
The tweet from actor Vijay of a selfie with fans posted in February was the mostretweeted tweet of 2020, while cricketer Virat Kohli’s tweet announcing that his actor wife Anushka Sharma and he are expecting theirfirst baby was the most liked tweet of the year, according to trends released by Twitter.
“This year has been quite unusual and unique. One of the majorthings we witnessed was the need to connect because we were physically distanced. Digital has become the most important way for people to express connection...rejoicing in celebratory moments, standing up forthose communities impacted by the pandemic, bonding overrediscovered shows, interests and memes,” Manish Maheshwari, managing director, TwitterIndia, said.
In politics, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tweet on lighting lamps at residence was the mostretweeted tweet, while in sports former Indian cricket captain M. S. Dhoni’s tweet expressing gratitude for a letter of appreciation by Mr. Modi was the mostretweeted.
IPL2020 and Dil Bechara were the top sports and movie hashtags, while ‘Binod’ became the most tweeted about meme during the year.
Unsurprisingly, COVID-19 topped the list of topics in current affairs that Indians had most conversations about. This was followed by late actor Sushant Singh Rajput and the Hathras murder and alleged gang-rape.
“In India, this year we played a very importantrole in three categories — informing, connecting and entertaining. Twitter became the service through which people got to know about how things are evolving, and COVID-19 became the most used hashtag on the service. Within COVID-19, there were a range of hashtags around janta curfew, wearing masks etc.,” Mr. Maheshwari said.
He added that Twitterlooked at about a million tweets from 22 cities over 100 days to understand what were the “top feelings”that people were talking about last year and compared that to this year.“What emerged was that people find joy in every day things... Ludhiana as a city topped the conversation in the area ofromance. The other one is Raipur.
Mr Maheshwari said that there was also a rise in conversations and tweets on various interests and hobbies, such as baking, photography, yoga, fitness and poetry.
“Globally, we have about 7,000 tweets per minute about TV and movies this year. In India also we see interesting trends. The Hindi movie Dil Bechara was the most tweeted about film to release this year, but immediately afterthat we had a Tamil film Soorarai Pottru and Telugu movie SarileruNeekevvaru,” he pointed out.
Asked about the regulation of offensive content and misinformation on Twitter, Mr. Maheshwari said that the “health of the conversations on the platform” was among the most important priorities and the company was investing in this area.
“We keep evolving our policies in response to what we observe on our platform. We learn about new ways in which bad actors do bad activities on the service and, in response to that, we continue to evolve our policies. Our approach there has been how do we provide more credible sources of information,” he said, adding that the company was also investing in its enforcement team to ensure the right enforcement of the policies.
“We have a global team forthat and are adding capacity there. We are also ensuring that they have the right cultural context to understand something in the context of the country that they are enforcing in. They have the relevant language capabilities as well and that is also very important,” he said.
He added that the company had invested in technology, and now “more than 50% of the tweets that are actioned on” are proactively identified by the platform.
Courtesy: www.thehindu.com
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Pakistan reports two more polio cases; Total tally now 52
ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.
The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.
Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.
