Five-month-old boy becomes world's first "3-parent baby"

Twitter has joined efforts to do away with racially loaded terms such as master, slave and blacklist from its coding language in the wake of the death of African-American George Floyd and ensuing Black Lives Matter protests.

The project started even before the current movement for racial justice escalated following the death of 46-year-old George Floyd in police custody in May.

The use of terms such as "master" and "slave" in programming language originated decades ago. While "master" is used to refer to the primary version of a code, "slave" refers to the replicas. Similarly, the term "Blacklist" is used to refer to items which are meant to be automatically denied.

The efforts to change these terms in favour of more inclusive language at Twitter were initiated by Regynald Augustin and Kevin Oliver and the microblogging platform is now backing their efforts.

"Inclusive language plays a critical role in fostering an environment where everyone belongs. At Twitter, the language we have been using in our code does not reflect our values as a company or represent the people we serve. We want to change that. #WordsMatter," Twitter's engineering team said in a post on Thursday.

As per the recommendations from the team, the term "whitelist" could be replaced by "allowlist" and "blacklist" by "denylist".

Similarly, "master/slave" could be replaced by "leader/follower", "primary/replica" or "primary/standby".

Twitter, however, is not the first to start a project to bring inclusivity in programming language.

According to a report in CNET, the team behind the Drupal online publishing software started using "primary/replica" in place of "master/slave" as early as in 2014.

The use of the terms "master/slave" was also dropped by developers of the Python programming language in 2018.

Now similar efforts are underway at Microsoft's Github and LinkedIn divisions as well, said the report.

Washington, Jan 7: Facebook will ban deepfake videos ahead of the US elections but the new policy will still allow heavily edited clips so long as they are parody or satire, the social media giant said Tuesday.

Deepfake videos are hyper-realistic doctored clips made using artificial intelligence or programs that have been designed to accurately fake real human movements.

In a blog published following a Washington Post report, Facebook said it would begin removing clips that were edited--beyond for clarity and quality--in ways that "aren't apparent to an average person" and could mislead people.

Clips would be removed if they were "the product of artificial intelligence or machine learning that merges, replaces or superimposes content onto a video, making it appear to be authentic," the statement from Facebook vice-president Monika Bickert said.

However, the statement added: "This policy does not extend to content that is parody or satire, or video that has been edited solely to omit or change the order of words."

US media noted the new guidelines would not cover videos such as the 2019 viral clip -- which was not a deepfake -- of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that appeared to show her slurring her words.

Facebook also gave no indication on the number of people assigned to identify and take down the offending videos, but said videos failing to meet its usual guidelines would be removed, and those flagged clips would be reviewed by teams of third-party fact-checkers -- among them AFP.

The news agency has been paid by the social media giant to fact-check posts across 30 countries and 10 languages as part of a program starting in December 2016, and including more than 60 organisations.

Content labeled "false" is not always removed from newsfeeds but is downgraded so fewer people see it -- alongside a warning explaining why the post is misleading.

Pune, Jul 24: Agile and dexterous, 85-year-old Shantabai Pawar wields sticks with absolute ease as she displays 'lathi-kathi' on the streets of Pune.

A video of her, displaying her skills in the Indian martial art form for livelihood, has gone viral on social media.

Pawar told media persons that she learnt the art form when she was only eight and has been practising it since then. The ancient martial art s believed to be linked to Dombari community, a nomadic tribe in Maharashtra.

"I have been pursuing the art of lathi-kathi since I was eight. I have never left it. It is part of me and it is an honour to practice it. My father taught me this. He taught me to work hard," Pawar told media persons.

In the video, the sari-clad octogenarian takes a warrior-like stride and effortlessly rotates a stick several times in a second in her hand and around her head and then does it with two sticks together with a smile on her face. She also tosses a stick in the air and catches it with ease.

The assembled gathering is impressed and enthused.

"People come and say, 'Well done Daadi!' I practice it to earn money for my children and grandchildren," she said.

Pawar leaves her home in the morning in the conditions created by coronavirus and performs the art form on roads and streets.

"I go to various areas to perform the art form and people give money," she said.

The artiste also uses thali and stick to gather the attention of people as most of them are indoors due to conditions created by COVID-19.

Senior citizens have been advised against venturing out due to their greater susceptibility to coronavirus but Pawar said she is not afraid to step out.

"People do advise me to not go out due to fear of COVID-19 but I am not scared. Whenever I step out, I pray to my God and he has kept me safe so far," she said.

Aishwarya Kale, a dancer and the person who uploaded the video on social media, said that it is "only an artist who can understand what help another artist needs".

"I was in that area shopping for some items and it was then I saw her performing and thought that I should film her and upload her video on social media. But I never thought that the video would go viral and she would receive financial help not just from people in the country but overseas as well," Kale told media persons.

"She is now getting honour for her craft that she couldn't get in the last 85 years. I feel good that through my small video, her art form has become viral," she added.