Twitter bans cryptocurrency ads on fraud fears

Twitter on Monday announced a ban on ads for initial offerings of cryptocurrency or sales of virtual currency tokens, sending the value of bitcoin diving below $8,000.

Twitter followed the lead of Google and Facebook, which earlier this year cracked down on digital currency ads to protect users from being duped.

"We are committed to ensuring the safety of the Twitter community," Twitter said in a statement.

"As such, we have added a new policy for Twitter Ads relating to cryptocurrency."

Under the new policy, the advertisement of ICOs, or initial currency offerings, and token sales will be prohibited at the global one-to-many messaging platform.

Some startups have used ICOs to raise billions of dollars in a highly volatile, unregulated market.

Twitter said: "We know that this type of content is often associated with deception and fraud, both organic and paid, and are proactively implementing a number of signals to prevent these types of accounts from engaging with others in a deceptive manner."

The value of bitcoin dropped eight percent to $7,929 after the Twitter ad ban was announced, according to market data from Bloomberg.

The new policy leaves open the door for ads for cryptocurrency exchanges or secure "wallet" services offered by public companies listed on some major exchanges.

Twitter plans to modify its ad policy as the digital currency market evolves and its ability to distinguish dubious marketing messages improves.

The British government early this year called for global regulation of controversial virtual currency bitcoin, adding that the G20 would address the topic this month.

Bitcoin is independent of governments and banks and uses blockchain technology, where encrypted digital coins are created by supercomputers.

The virtual currency is not regulated by any central bank but is instead overseen by a community of users who try to guard against counterfeiting.

Virtual currency exchanges have seen tremendous volatility, and have sparked concerns they can be used to launder money for criminal networks.

The value of Litecoin also tanked on Monday, after the Singapore-based nonprofit Litecoin foundation put out word that payments processor LitePay ceased operations.

LitePay had asked the foundation for more funding, but was "unable to provide a satisfactory picture" of what it did with the money it had already been given, according to a release.

"We are greatly disheartened that this saga has ended in this way and we apologize for not doing enough due diligence that could have uncovered some of these issues earlier," Litecoin foundation said in the release.

"We are currently working hard to tighten our due diligence practices and ensure that this does not happen again."

Litecoin was down about 10 percent to $144.05 as of mid-day.

gc/wd

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Vettel holds off Hamilton to win Australian GP thriller

MELBOURNE, Australia - Sebastian Vettel won a thrilling duel with world champion Lewis Hamilton to steal the season-opening Australian Formula One Grand Prix in Melbourne on Sunday.

The four-time world champion got the jump on the Mercedes ace off a miscalculation on the pit stop under Virtual Safety Car conditions and held off Hamilton for his second straight win in Melbourne and third overall.

Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen resisted a challenge from Australian Red Bull racer Daniel Ricciardo to take third and join Vettel on the podium.

"Obviously we were a little bit lucky today," Vettel said at the victory ceremony.

"Lewis did a great lap yesterday and deserved pole and he drove a very good race, controlling in the beginning.

"We got a bit lucky but we will take it. We're not yet where we want to be, I don't quite feel the car, but it gives us a good start, good wind and fresh motivation."

It was Vettel's 48th win in his 200th grand prix and follows his earlier wins in Melbourne in 2011 for Red Bull and last year for Ferrari.

Vettel, 30, is in a duel this season with Hamilton as they chase 1950s Argentine legend Juan Manuel Fangio's mark of five world titles -- second only to Michael Schumacher's seven in the all-time list.

'What just happened?' 

Hamilton, who had started from pole position, got out his car and looked a bit bewildered as he removed his helmet, wondering how exactly that race got away from him.

"Today they did the better job. We have to go back to the drawing board and work on it," Hamilton said.

"We still have great pace and during the race I could apply pressure at the end but it is so hard to overtake here.

"At the end it was live to fight another day and save the engine."

Vettel had led after Hamilton's early tyre stop and when mid-race the German changed to a new set of soft tyres he emerged still ahead, gaining around 10 seconds in the pit lane thanks to the Mercedes driver having to slow on track once the Virtual Safety Car (VSC) had been deployed.

"What just happened guys? Was that my mistake?" a confused Hamilton said on team radio as he saw Vettel come out of the pit lane in front of him before a full safety car was sent out with marshals struggling to remove the stranded Haas of Romain Grosjean.

"We thought we were safe, but there's obviously something wrong," the team told Hamilton. Mercedes potentially miscalculated the VSC minimum speed during the phase Vettel claimed the lead.

Vettel retained his lead as the race was restarted and built a lead of seven-tenths of a second.

Alonso back in the fight 

Hamilton made an error as he locked up at turn nine and fell 2.8 seconds behind Vettel with 11 laps remaining.

Vettel proved too resilient and held on as Hamilton backed off over the final laps realising he could not pass the flying German.

Team-mate Raikkonen, bidding for his third win in Australia, kept Ricciardo and Red Bull off the podium.

"It was OK. We didn't have the most luck but what can you do," he said.

"Luckily it was Seb who got the luck and it was our team at least. I think I had decent speed all day long, it's just difficult to pass."

Two-time world champion Fernando Alonso was fifth in his McLaren ahead of Red Bull's young Dutchman Max Verstappen.

"Well done guys, very proud of you. Long winter, long seasons in the past but now we can fight, we can fight," Alonso said over the team radio.

rsm/dh

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Kathmandu plane crash kills at least 40

At least 40 people were killed and 23 injured when a Bangladeshi plane crashed and burst into flames near Kathmandu airport on Monday, in the worst aviation disaster to hit Nepal in years.

Officials said there were 71 people on board the US-Bangla Airlines plane from Dhaka when it crashed into a football field near the airport.

Rescuers had to cut apart the mangled and burned wreckage of the aircraft to pull people out.

"Thirty-one people died at the spot and nine died at two hospitals in Kathmandu," police spokesman Manoj Neupane told AFP, adding another 23 were injured.

The cause of the crash was not immediately clear, but a statement from airport authorities said the plane was "out of control" as it came in to land.

Eye witnesses said the plane crashed as it made a second attempt to land.

Nepal Army spokesman Gokul Bhandaree said seven of the victims had survived the impact but later died of their injuries.

Plumes of black smoke could be seen rising from the football pitch where the plane crashed, to the east of the runway at Nepal's only international airport, in the capital Kathmandu.

Airline spokesman Kamrul Islam, told AFP 33 of the passengers were Nepali, 32 were Bangladeshi, one was Chinese and one from the Maldives.

The plane was a Canadian-made Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 turboprop, Mahbubur Rahman of Bangladesh's civil aviation ministry told AFP. Other sources said the aircraft was 17 years old.

"There might be technical problems on the aircraft. But it has to be probed before making a final statement," Rahman told AFP.

Kathmandu briefly closed after the accident, forcing inbound flights to divert, but it has since reopened.

US-Bangla Airlines is a private carrier that launched in July 2014 with the motto "Fly Fast Fly Safe", according to its website.

The Dhaka-based airline made its first international flight in May 2016 to Kathmandu, and has since expanded with routes to South Asia, the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

In 2015 one of its planes overshot the runway on landing at Saidpur in northwest Bangladesh. There were no reports of injuries.

Nepal has suffered a number of air disasters in recent years, dealing a blow to its tourist industry.

Its poor air safety record has been blamed largely on inadequate maintenance, inexperienced pilots and substandard management.

In early 2016, a Twin Otter turboprop aircraft slammed into a mountainside in Nepal killing all 23 people on board.

Two days later, two pilots were killed when a small passenger plane crash-landed in the country's hilly midwest.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Financial infidelity: One in five Americans hides bank account

One in five Americans has hidden at least one bank account or credit card from their spouse or partner, a survey has found.

Younger people tended to be more likely to keep an account from a partner, with almost a third of millennials (people aged 18-37) admitting to having done so, according to the study by YouGov Plc, an internet-based market research and data analytics firm.

Twenty-four percent of Gen Xers (aged 38 to 53) had hidden assets, and 17 percent of baby boomers (54 to 72) admitted to having hidden an account, it added.

Just eight percent of people 73 or older had hidden a card or account, it said.

The study also found that almost a third (31 percent) of Americans said that keeping a card or account secret was worse than cheating romantically.

Meanwhile, 11 percent of all couples say they never discuss their combined finances.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Instagram tests new features vs trolls

MANILA -- In an effort to combat online trolls and hate messages, photo-sharing social media app Instagram is quietly launching new features that apparently filter custom keywords out of the comments section of posts.

Another feature is to shut off entirely comments on these posts.

As reported by Agence France-Presse (AFP), these new features are initially intended for use by “high-profile” accounts, although there is the possibility of having these rolled out to other users as well in the coming weeks when the test is successful.

"Our goal is to make Instagram a friendly, fun and, most importantly, safe place for self expression," according to an Instagram message to an AFP inquiry.

The introduction of filtering features on Instagram, which is owned by social media giant Facebook, comes at a time when celebrities have started to complain about harassment and cyber-bullying on their social media accounts.

American actress Tia Mowry, model Ashley Graham, and singer Taylor Swift were recent victims of harassment on their Instagram accounts.

One of the more recent cases of cyber harassment was that of “Ghostbuster” actress Leslie Jones, who left Twitter after allegedly being targeted.

Instagram is one of the biggest social media apps with 500 million active users who share at least 95 million photos in a day.

The company was acquired by Facebook in 2012 for a whopping $1 billion.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com