iWorld
Narendra Modi’s tweets made available on SMS
NEW DELHI: With increasing emphasis on social media by the present government, citizens who do not have access to internet will be able to receive the tweets sent by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from time to time on issues of national importance.
People who want to know Modi’s views on various events can now receive his tweets through SMS on their mobile phones.
A person wanting to receive the tweets will merely have to give a missed call to (011) 30063006 and the caller will start receiving these tweets.
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah has written a letter to all state and district units of the party to popularize this concept.
For those using the internet, the Prime Minister can also receive mails from people on either pmindia.nic.in or mygov.in.
Currently, Amitabh Bachchan is one of the few whose tweets are being sent by SMS to selected mobile users.
iWorld
UK races towards under-16 social-media ban and tighter leash on AI chatbots
Ministers eye Australian-style curbs within months, vowing to close loopholes that expose children to risky AI and online harms
UK: Britain is sprinting towards a social-media ban for under-16s and a clampdown on AI chatbots, as ministers scramble to get ahead of fast-moving digital risks to children.
An Australian-style prohibition on under-16s using social platforms could arrive as early as this year. At the same time, the government wants to shut a loophole that leaves some AI chatbots outside existing safety rules.
Keir Starmer’s government launched a consultation last month on banning social media for under-16s and is now working on legislative changes that could land within months of the consultation closing.
The push comes amid a broader international shift. Spain, Greece and Slovenia are exploring similar bans after Australia became the first country to block social-media access for under-16s. Scrutiny of AI has intensified since Elon Musk’s flagship chatbot, Grok, was found to be generating non-consensual sexualised images.
Britain’s 2023 Online Safety Act is among the world’s toughest regimes, yet it does not cover one-to-one interactions with AI chatbots unless content is shared with other users. That gap, Liz Kendall said, will be closed.
“I am concerned about these AI chatbots… as is the prime minister, about the impact that’s having on children and young people,” Kendall told Times Radio. Some children, she said, were forming one-to-one relationships with AI systems “that were not designed with child safety in mind.”
Proposals will be set out before June. Tech firms, Kendall said, would be responsible for ensuring their systems comply with British law.
Ministers are also consulting on automatic data-preservation orders when a child dies, allowing investigators to secure vital online evidence — a measure long sought by bereaved families. Other ideas include curbs on “stranger pairing” on gaming consoles and blocks on sending or receiving nude images. The changes would come as amendments to crime and child-protection laws now before parliament.
The child-safety drive is not without friction. Such rules can have knock-on effects for adults’ privacy and access to services, and have already stirred tensions with the United States over free speech and regulatory overreach.
Some large pornography sites have chosen to block British users rather than conduct age checks. Those blocks are easily sidestepped with virtual private networks, which the government is considering restricting for minors.
Many parents and safety advocates favour a ban. Yet some child-protection groups fear it could push harmful behaviour into darker, less regulated corners of the internet or create a sharp cliff edge at 16. Ministers still need to define, in law, what counts as social media before any ban bites.
The direction of travel, though, is clear: faster rules, fewer loopholes, and a shrinking tolerance for digital wild west. For tech firms and teenagers alike, Britain’s online free ride looks set to end at speed.
