Getting apps banned in certain countries is a lot more common than you think. China is a prime example of plenty of apps and platforms getting banned in favour of their own in-house platforms. Facebook and Google cannot operate in China currently. That also means your WhatsApp will not work in China unless you use a VPN to bypass all the restrictions.
Banning a communication platform or website does a few things for a country. For one, it helps curb the spreading of information from inside and outside the country. There is another aspect of monitoring the communication channels inside the country, but most independent platforms are encrypted enough that governments do not usually have a hold of your chat information – so we are mostly safe.
Countries like the United States wants to have more control over companies like Facebook and Google because of the amount of information that these platforms have. They argued that these companies have breached a few privacy laws and are using our data illegally. Information, after all, is power. But there is also another thing that social media and communication platforms can do. You can spread untrue information and that information can be gospel.
That is exactly what happened with Telegram in Brazil and the government has no choice but to curb the problem by banning the use of Telegram in the entire nation. Brazil has recently hosted a successful election campaign. Politics are never straightforward though and there will always be people who are unhappy about the results. That leads to misleading information being created and possibly circulated. The easiest way to disseminate disinformation is via social media.
While Facebook and Google have been doing their part in keeping misinformation in check on their own platforms, Telegram is a more open-sourced platform that has not done a lot in filtering out bad actors. They can manually filter disinformation channels and users though, if you email them. Brazil did the exact same thing anyone would then. Nothing happened though, and that led to Brazil banning the platform on Friday.
Telegram has since responded by removing the whatever reported posts that are pointed in the emails the Brazilian government has sent them. But they also claimed that they have missed the email. There is also a reason for them missing these emails. Apparently, Telegram uses a dedicated email for complains and takedown requests. The Brazilian court emailed Telegram on their general use email that they hardly check apparently. In that case, Telegram has also referred the Brazilian government to the correct email and rectified the issue.
As of today, Telegram is no longer banned in Brazil. Telegram also promises that they will be doing better in labelling and taking down accounts, groups, and even misinformed posts in general. They have removed classified information shared by the Brazilian President and removed accounts belonging and connected to an activist that is accused of misinformation.
A big change is coming to YouTube – one that has seemingly broken the internet. The Google owned streaming platform has announced a change that may just change how we interact with videos on the platform. Starting 10 November 2021, the public dislike count will be going away. Yep- it looks like dislike bombing may not be a thing anymore. However, the dislike button is here to stay.
Source: YouTube (Twitter)
YouTube is looking to make the platform a little less toxic and a little more empowering – particularly for new content creators. They highlight that they have realised over the past year that dislikes were essentially being weaponised by bad actors to bully and put down content creators. Swathes of users and bots would target dislike buttons not because of the content being put out; but rather due to the stances that creators take and, in other cases, simply because they don’t like the creator.
👍👎 In response to creator feedback around well-being and targeted dislike campaigns, we're testing a few new designs that don't show the public dislike count. If you're part of this small experiment, you might spot one of these designs in the coming weeks (example below!). pic.twitter.com/aemrIcnrbx
That said, the dislike button isn’t going anywhere. In fact, the number of dislikes isn’t going away either. It simply will not be shown publicly. Creators will still see the metric in their creator studio dashboard and analytics. However, YouTube believes that this will allow them to not feel publicly shamed when a piece of content doesn’t resonate or garners more dislikes than likes. In addition, the dislike button will also help optimise YouTube’s algorithm to surface more of the content that you like.
That said, the company is saying that they are staying true to their mission of giving everyone a voice with the change. They say the change will help empower more small creators and allow a healthy, continued discourse on their platform.
No matter what you say or whichever platform you say is better as a social voice chat platform, Clubhouse will still be ranked on top in terms of popularity and utilisation. It is also one of the platforms that consistently innovates in its space, even compared to the likes of Spotify Greenroom, or Facebook’s Live Audio Rooms. That is why, from time to time, Clubhouse introduces a new update that changes the way or expands the way you use clubhouse and interact with your friends on the platform.
With the most recent update, Clubhouse is making it possible for users to share external links. While this does not directly allow on-platform monetisation, it does allow some form of monetisation for plenty of users. For example, users now can pin Patreon links. There is even a possibility of linking Kickstarter and Indiegogo project links to the Clubhouse rooms that users create to talk about their latest projects, or pain points for example. For a lot of content creators, it is now possible to include their YouTube channel links, Podcast links, their own curated website, news portals, and even news articles.
Source: Clubhouse
There are of course limitations to what sort of links you can pin on the top of the room. Obviously, porn is frowned upon, so you cannot post links to porn websites to any rooms, even if you are talking about explicit subjects or the likes. Obviously as well, OnlyFans is one of those sites that are banned from Clubhouse link pinning feature.
As far as transactions that happens within the links, Clubhouse claims that they will not be taking any cuts or commissions from them. With that, Clubhouse is saying that they are working on multiple things to allow content creators on the platform to monetise their own contents on the app itself. The feature will be available soon on iOS and Android versions of the app. Clubhouse is available for free on both iOS and Android via the Apple App Store and Google Play Store respectively. For more information on Pinned Links feature on Clubhouse, you can find out more on their blog.
Unprecedented – that seems to be the word of the decade. In the past five years alone, we’ve seen so many things change; big tech players have faded into the ether, the world has gone through a global pandemic and now, we’re dealing with an increase in data breaches and leaks that could affect all of us. Most recently the world saw Facebook and its services go offline and the massive Twitch.tv breach. While Facebook has said that the issue is simply an error in their network settings, we cannot deny that their credibility has been called into question in recent weeks.
One thing that worries us is the scale and the size of the companies being targeted by attackers now. We can’t deny the size of Facebook; in fact, we interact with one or more of its platforms or products on daily basis. However, when it comes to Twitch.tv, not many are aware that the platform is actually an Amazon property. Yep – you read that right – Amazon.
These companies are large players that we depend on for everything from shopping to keeping in contact with loved ones. As a matter of fact, Amazon powers a significant portion of the internet with its web services AWS.
Noticing this, we were wondering – How can we, as consumers and regular Janes and Joes, prepare and protect ourselves from data breaches?
Attackers & Malicious Actors Are Becoming More Brazen
It comes as no surprise that attackers and malicious actors are becoming more brazen with their attacks and demands. In the case of Twitch’s breach, a slew of hate-related events plaguing the platform spurred it. It was a retaliation against what the individual(s) saw as a lack of action on the platform’s part.
Managing Director at Trend Micro Malaysia, Goh Chee Hoh, notes that “The primary motive for the hacker is not to reveal user information or monetary, but to disrupt and encourage competition in the online video streaming space, where the earnings exposure of the top streamers on the platform becomes part of the collateral damage.”
It would seem like we are more at risk of becoming collateral damage as malicious actors continue to target larger corporations. In Twitch’s breach, vigilante justice saw the earnings of the platform’s top streamers became collateral damage. Mr Goh also highlights this in his statement, “It sounds like the perpetrator carried out the attack as a form of vigilantism, in their own perspective.”
So, how does this affect us? For one thing, we can expect even more daring attacks. Large companies like Google, Facebook and even Microsoft won’t be spared. There’s no denying that we interact with one, if not more, of these companies or their services on a daily basis. Some have more of our data than others. That’s where we’re at the most risk.
Companies Need to Learn from Twitch’s Breach
Before we can talk about how we can protect ourselves from breaches, we have to talk about how companies can better protect us, as their users. We already know that many of them have processes, protocols and software in place for protection but there’s always a chance that these measures aren’t enough. I mean, human error is something we can never plan for completely.
Checks and Balances are Key to Maintaining Cyber security
Candid Wuest, Vice President of Cyber Protection Research at Acronis, highlights this in his comment on the Twitch breach, “Companies should learn that they need to verify and monitor configuration changes. With IT infrastructure becoming more and more complex the risk of errors raises as well.” Mr Wuest’s statement does seem to apply to the recent Facebook outage as well.
However, his colleague, Topher Tebow, an analyst at Acronis, goes a step further and highlights the need for zero-trust environments in today’s climate. He advises that companies should have “proper monitoring in place to detect malicious activity on the network, including data being moved out of the network. Many companies assume that if an authorized user is moving data, that the behaviour is most likely acceptable, but if a user’s credentials were compromised or the account was hijacked in some other way, data flowing to an unusual source could allow a security team to detect and block an attack early on if proper monitoring is in place.”
Complement with Proper Cyber security Solutions
Of course, even with these measures, companies need to have a proper defence firewall. Mr Goh does advise that companies should “adopt a multi-layered defence approach, by having security controls at various entry points of the system, from emails, laptops, to servers and networks.” In the case of the Twitch breach, an added layer that integrates with their native cloud services would have provided an extra layer for malicious actors to deal with which could have prevented the breach.
There really isn’t an excuse in this day and age for companies not to have these measures in place. Cyber security firms like Trend Micro and Acronis have been talking about a multilayered approach for years. It is even more crucial that companies take these measures as they embrace the cloud and work from anywhere. What’s more, digital-native companies should be the front line when it comes to the adoption of these measures.
What Can We do if Our Data is Compromised in a Breach?
The biggest pain point for us as consumers comes after the fact – when data breaches have already occurred. To be honest, we don’t really have control of what happens in the aftermath of a data breach. But, we can ensure that we minimise the potential damage that can occur in the wake of a breach.
Our First line of Defense: Change Them Passwords
In any data breach, the first thing we should do as users is to update our passwords. There are multiple ways to ensure you have a strong enough password to protect yourself. The first is to make sure you have a mix of characters, symbols and numbers. Doing this will make it harder for your password to be cracked.
On top of that, it goes without saying that longer passwords will take longer to crack. However, keep in mind that passwords that are too long have diminishing returns when it comes to remembering them. Another thing to remember is that dictionary words even with symbols replacing alphabets are less secure. While it is easy to remember, we’re in a world where AI has made it possible to understand and decode these even faster than ever.
In addition, keep in mind that the more you use the same password, the less secure it is. In fact, you become more at risk in a data breach. Therefore, use multiple different passwords; preferably a unique one for each service you use. It goes without saying, don’t use your banking passwords for anything else.
Two-Factor Authentication is Your Friend
As we’re moving on in a digital world, more and more of our services are using two-factor authentication. These measures, while cumbersome, will ensure that access to your accounts is more secure. This is implemented in multiple ways across different platforms using email, SMS or an app.
Using two-factor authentication adds an additional layer to access your account. In most cases, it will notify you when your account is being accessed. This will allow you to react immediately. Many of these two-factor authentication steps allow you to immediately lock down your account and change your password.
Be Vigilant
We will need to be vigilant in the wake of a data breach even if we are not directly affected by it. Acronis’ Candid Wuest reminds us that “data stolen in data breaches is often reused in personalized phishing emails”. With this in mind, keep an eye out for fishy emails or even Nigerian princes. Sometimes information from breaches can allow malicious actors to socially engineer phishing attacks that can mimic emails that you will find urgent or pertinent.
If you had banking or payment information linked to a breached account, you may have to monitor your bills more closely. Your other option is to cancel or change the card in question to make sure that you are able to minimise damage.
It’s a Question of When Not If
The biggest lesson all of us, consumers and companies alike, can take away from the recent breach of Twitch is this; it’s no longer a question of if we will be breached but when we will. It’s an inevitable fact as we progress into a more digital world. As more of our information is placed in the cloud and with corporations, they are increasingly made available to malicious actors if not protected effectively.
The fallout from a data breach is not pretty. More so now when countries have legislation that protects the general public from their data being abused. For companies, the fallout can affect their bottom line as customers look for more secure options. In addition, with GDPR and similar legislation, they could be facing fines for not effectively protecting the collected data.
For regular users like you and me, we have the added headache of trying to make sure we minimise our exposure. Everything from changing our passwords to activating two-factor authentication to even calling the bank to cancel cards; are added inconveniences that could affect our choice in services moving forwards.
If you were awake in the wee hours of yesterday looking to Instagram or Facebook for memes before calling it a night, you would have been sorely disappointed. Facebook’s platforms faced a major outage which lasted most of last night. Even WhatsApp wasn’t spared from the outage as messages failed to go through – which might have been a welcome reprieve for many of us.
It seems like connectivity and social media isn’t the only thing that experienced the outage. Reports have surfaced that the outage also affected Facebook’s staff emails and even office badges. So what actually happened?
Essentially Facebook and all its properties disappeared from the internet. How? Well, the cause is a change in the settings of the internet infrastructure between Facebook’s data centres. These changes essentially made it so Facebook and its properties couldn’t be found when browsers and apps looked up anything address that led to the company’s servers. Facebook’s official explanation for this is an error in the updated settings which had a cascading effect.
Source: Facebook
“Our engineering teams have learned that configuration changes on the backbone routers that coordinate network traffic between our data centers caused issues that interrupted this communication. This disruption to network traffic had a cascading effect on the way our data centers communicate, bringing our services to a halt.“
However, many cyber security companies have come forward and suggested that there may be more to the outage than meets the eye. Some have suggested the underlying cause of the outage may, in fact, be a hack or breach in Facebook’s data servers. According to Acronis, DNS and BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) are popular targets for malicious players to mount cyber-attacks. There is a myriad of ways that they can do this from social engineering to hijack through the registrar or simply by affecting the settings themselves. Facebook tries to downplay this saying that there is no evidence of data being compromised.
Source: LinkedIn
“There are various potential attacks against DNS infrastructure – from DDoS attacks to local DNS rebinding or hijacking a DNS with social engineering against the registrar. Looking at overall attack statistics, they are a lot less popular than common malware and ransomware attacks, but they can be extremely devastating if successful in a sophisticated attack. It’s like pulling the electric cable to your server room – whole enterprise suddenly goes dark.“
Candid Wuest, Acronis VP of Cyber Protection Research
Cloudflare corroborates both Facebook’s official statement and also Acronis’ in their own blog post. The company states that they saw a peak of routing changes from Facebook at 15:40 UTC (10:40 PM in Malaysia). It was only after this that the outages followed.
Was Facebook Trying to Silence Whistleblowing?
While that may be the case, it seems like there is a growing theory that Facebook’s outage was not an accident. The company has been under fire in recent months after inklings of potentially damning accusations came to light. The data showed that Facebook had been ignoring and hiding its own internal data that Instagram could be potentially harmful to teens. This was also one of the reasons why Instagram Kids was put on ice. It was also revealed that the company had a separate set of standards for public figures.
Whistleblower Frances Haugen is a data scientist from Iowa with a computer engineering degree and a Harvard MBA. She told us the only job she wanted at Facebook was to work against misinformation because she had lost a friend to online conspiracy theories. https://t.co/csgaRe6k5hpic.twitter.com/tSNav057As
The information has since been linked to Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee. Why is this being linked to the outage? Well, it seems that the outage occurred following a very damning interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes. While the timing maybe a little bit suspicious, there hasn’t been any data to support the theory.
Be that as it may, the outage did more than just inconvenience users of Facebook’s many apps, it also affected the net worth of CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg saw billions in losses as the company’s stocks tanked in light of the outage. It’s not been a very quiet 2021 for the company and, hopefully, this isn’t an indication of things to come.
Instagram has come under fire after a recently published report by The Wall Street Journalhinted that the company maybe ignoring internal research. The research suggests that the social media platform could actually have a negative impact on teenage girls. According to the report, the company has been well aware of the damning effect that Instagram has on their users. However, the company and its representatives have actively downplayed them. Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram, has publicly lauded the research and called for the platform to embrace its wider responsibility.
That said, it looks like that isn’t enough. Just today, Mosseri posted a public announcement regarding the status of Instagram Kids. The new platform, which has been in development for a while now, but was brought to light only earlier in March. With his post, Adam Mosseri announced that development for the platform has been put on ice. That said, he still stood by the decision to develop Instagram Kids.
Source: Instagram (@humansoftukulti)
“I still strongly believe that it is the right thing to do. It has to be better to give parents the option to give their tweens a version of Instagram that was designed with them in mind. That was designed to be safe for those between 10 and 12. One where there are no ads; where there are parental controls; where there is age appropriate content; where they can supervise and shape the experience in meaningful ways…”
Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram
The company is taking the pause in development to better communicate and discuss the platform with stakeholders. Adam Mosseri highlighted that they will use the time to speak to experts, parents and researchers in an effort to better gear Instagram Kids to protect children. In fact, he mentions that some of the features and enhancements that were being developed for kids may find their way to the Instagram app to better allow parents to curate their teenager’s Instagram experience. The company has also issued an official statement addressing the issue.
That said, since their announcement, Facebook has come under fire from U.S. lawmakers. These lawmakers are calling for them to drop the matter entirely. In their statement, they are asseting that “Facebook has completely forfeited the benefit of the doubt when it comes to protecting young people online and it must completely abandon this project.”
That said, the company’s woes with Instagram Kids is only the latest in Facebook’s encounters with leglislation. Facebook has recently come under fire for data privacy issues and even anticompetitive behaviours as world governments struggle to leglislate Big Tech.
Today is a funny world of memes and GIFs. Pronounce ‘GIF’ however you want, but you cannot deny its popularity and its significance in modern communication. It has become a tool to quickly express yourself in certain moments with your friends, and even with the world of social media. You can even create your own GIFs these days with your smartphone or even the web. One of the most popular platforms for virtually unlimited GIFs is Giphy.
If you are not aware, Facebook currently owns Giphy (what else do they not own?). They made a bid of US$ 400 million earlier in 2020 for Giphy and now owns at least a major part of Giphy. Facebook’s acquisition of the popular GIF platform should not come as a surprise though. After all, GIF is now a large part of social media and Facebook has been relentless in their quest to be a one-stop-shop of all things social media. The acquisition of Giphy also allows Facebook to directly access Giphy’s database and develop APIs that would seamlessly integrate Facebook’s platforms to Giphy, which is a big win for WhatsApp users at least.
It seems that not everyone agrees with Facebook’s acquisition of Giphy though. The Competition and Markers Authority (CMA), an anti-competition regulator in the United Kingdom (UK), launched an investigation following the acquisition of Giphy last year. Yes, last year, not this year. They finally came to a finding that was released yesterday though that might be alarming for Facebook.
Their statement (as per The Verge and quoted below) raises concerns over how Giphy is a platform of choice for many of the other social media platforms that are currently not owned by Facebook. CMA argues that Facebook’s acquisition of Giphy might affect that access from other social media platforms; in other words, CMA thinks that Facebook will cut off access to Giphy making it a Facebook exclusive instead of the open platform that it is currently known for. CMA also cited that Facebook could also acquire more user data that was previously not available to it from other social media platforms like Snapchat and Twitter via Giphy. They also argued that Giphy was on its way to building their own ads business model that could be a possible competition to Facebook, and those plans were derailed with Facebook’s acquisition. They will be producing a final report on the issue in October 2021.
“Millions of posts every day on social media sites now include a GIF. Any reduction in the choice or quality of these GIFs could significantly affect how people use these sites and whether or not they switch to a different platform, such as Facebook. As most major social media sites that compete with Facebook use Giphy GIFs, and there is only one other large provider of GIFs – Google’s Tenor – these platforms have very little choice.
The CMA provisionally found that Facebook’s ownership of Giphy could lead it to deny other platforms access to its GIFs. Alternatively, it could change the terms of this access – for example, Facebook could require Giphy customers, such as TikTok, Twitter and Snapchat, to provide more user data in order to access Giphy GIFs. Such actions could increase Facebook’s market power, which is already significant.”
Of course, Facebook did not sit still with the investigation that was launched last year. They have since made a few submissions to CMA claiming that Giphy had “no meaningful audience of its own”. They also claimed that Giphy relies on Facebook for most of its traffic anyway. To be fair too, Giphy has not been posting any profit numbers in its 8-year history, even with some US$ 150 million raised over their course of existence. Since the acquisition too, Giphy’s employees have not been integrated into Facebook and everything has been kept at status quo at the moment.
So far then, it is still business as usual on both ends. That also means that you still can enjoy Giphy on any platform of your choosing, for now. If the deal still goes through though, CMA’s fears could come true, and your source of never-ending GIFs will be exclusive to Facebook apps sooner than later. At the same time, Giphy needs money to keep operating, and in that case, who would keep Giphy funded if Facebook is not allowed to own Giphy?
Clubhouse became the rage late last year when Elon Musk decided to host a conversation and discussion on the platform. It became the biggest social media fad since Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat joined the party too in 2020. To be fair, Facebook is getting a little old, and people are getting a bit bored by it. It is still one of the foremost social media platforms, do not get us wrong. It is a place for absolutely everything you can imagine, from making friends, getting trades, source of daily news, to even getting dates.
Clubhouse is a unique platform though. Unlike the usual social media platforms which are heavy on visuals and are mainly visual based platforms, Clubhouse is purely audio based. Unlike most platforms as well, which stores or records your media for at least the next 24 hours, Clubhouse does not have audio recording built-into the platform. That also means that once you miss a session on Clubhouse, you missed it.
It also comes in a time where the need for human interaction is at an all-time high. The whole pandemic situation around the world has isolated us in an unprecedented rate. Working from home and not being able to interact with people as normally as we can has taken a toll on everyone. On Clubhouse, some normalisation can be achieved by naturally talking to your friends or meeting new people on the platform on subjects that you can relate to.
It started out as an iOS exclusive as well with the Android version released a bout a month ago. While Android users have to content with plenty of missing contents and features from the beta app compared to the iOS version, they were pretty much warned about the beta status. What a lot of other people do not realise though, is that while the app has existed for a year or so, the app was still in Beta mode.
That also explains the fact that you can only be invited to the app instead of simply signing up on the platform and get access to all the contents that the platform has to offer. With the Beta status taken off and finally launching in full, Clubhouse’s invite only exclusivity will be removed. Anyone in the waiting list with no invite will immediately get full access to Clubhouse’s various contents and curation.
Aside from the no waiting list update, there are a few things that is released with the updated Clubhouse. To celebrate the Japan Olympics, users can now add a national flag to their bio. There is a new icon to the app as well as part of the update.
Clubhouse, so far, is still the most popular platform of its kind. That has not stopped companies like Spotify, Facebook, and even Discord to try to get in on the Slack action with their own version of an audio chat platform though. While newer platforms like Spotify’s Greenroom may do a few things better than Clubhouse, the platform is fairly new and might take some time to stick compared to clubhouse.
Clubhouse is now available for free on both Google Play Store and Apple App Store. As mentioned, there are no more waiting list to get on the platform, so signing up and getting to the contents is just as simple as signing up on the platform itself with your mobile number. As far as we are concerned, the only downside to the platform is that the account is tied to your mobile number.
Last week we saw Clubhouse finally taking the plunge into Android. The blogpost from Clubhouse themselves, dated 9th May 2021 said that they will be pushing into the Android market with a Beta app starting with their home market, the United States of America. Apart from their home market though, they said they will be pushing into other English-speaking markets in the coming weeks.
We thought that we will only get Clubhouse in two to four weeks. To be fair, while Malaysia is considered a major English-speaking nation, English is not necessarily our first language if we are being politically correct. In that case, we were guessing that nations like Singapore and probably India to get Clubhouse first before Malaysia. India mostly because of its population density and the various Android devices that the market houses as well. The large and diverse sample sizes could prove useful for the Clubhouse development team in bug testing, stress testing, and even diagnosing porting issues.
We were proven wrong though. Just a week in and Clubhouse announced that the rest of the world will be getting Clubhouse on their Android devices. According to their twitter post that is about 14 hours old, the Clubhouse version of Android will see the light of day in Japan, Brazil, and Russia by Tuesday; that is tomorrow. Nigeria and India will see the Clubhouse app by Friday morning. The rest of the world will get the app by Friday too, albeit in the afternoon. Our prediction that India might get the stuff sooner than Malaysia did sort of come true.
Clubhouse on Android, as per mentioned last week, is still in Beta stage though. There will still be some bugs on the app, and we can expect the Android app to not have all the features available to users from the iOS camp. We are expecting improvements to come over the coming months to bring the Android version of the app to what the iOS users are already familiar with though. The only function we do not expect to make it into the Android app in Malaysia at least is their payments function. That feature is also not available on Clubhouse on iOS in Malaysia too.
You can expect Clubhouse to gain traction quickly in the Android playing field too. Despite other social media giants like Twitter and Facebook launching their own Clubhouse-like features, they have not gained the traction to match Clubhouse and therefore proved unpopular among users. But of course, there is one thing that might prevent a large influx of Android users into Clubhouse though. Clubhouse remains an invite-only platform. For you to start an account with Clubhouse and join conversations, you must have an invite from your friends already on the platform.
There are also issues and controversies raised surrounding the app itself too. There are issues concerning its security and privacy at some point. The app has also been criticized for not being friendly to the hearing-impaired community. The app is still quite young though; it is barely a year old, to be fair. There is still plenty to improve on at this point. Currently, the app has focused a little more on creators with plans to fund over 50 audio shows on Clubhouse as part of an accelerator program. They are also planning to introduce in-room tipping for creators, paid events, and even subscriptions into Clubhouse soon. Live podcasting from us anyone?
There was a debate that raged on a bit in a certain new and upcoming social media app. The app was valued at US$ 4 Billion (MYR*) at its most recent fundraiser too. That social media platform is Clubhouse, and the debate was whether or not Clubhouse should remain an iOS exclusive platform.
For over a year, Clubhouse has remained exclusive to iOS. That is not without good reason though. Developing on iOS is a little more straightforward because there is not a tonne of scaling to work with, everything is based on roughly the same hardware architecture. You do not have to take different versions of iOS and iPhone devices into account either, the SDK will do its job and standardise experience across all iPhone devices. Obviously, with the amount of Android devices out there for different market segments, things become a little more complex when you want to develop on Android. This was the case of WhatsApp on iOS and Android all over again.
Still, the voice based social network app has been one of the most popular apps since the pandemic broke out and everyone in the world is expected to stay at home and lock themselves up. It gave people another way to stay connected with the rest of the world. It gave way to Elon Musk to connect with other people from other parts of the world without physically meeting them. Elon Musk could be one of the reasons why Clubhouse blew up too.
Still, because Clubhouse was a thing, Android users are now asking for the feature on their devices. Clubhouse also have been reportedly working on its Android app for some time now. Earlier in the year Clubhouse finally announced that they are going to put Clubhouse in Google’s Play Store. This week, they came through in the United States of America (U.S.A.).
Source: Clubhouse
The Clubhouse app is now in open Beta state in Google Play Store. While that means you get access to the most basic functions of Clubhouse like joining a chat room and moderate a chat for example, there are still some things that users on Android will not get access to for the time being. For one, Android users will not be able to report someone else for now. That feature will come soon though according to Clubhouse.
Translation and localisation will not yet be available as well on the Android version. Understandably, Clubhouse on Android is still limited to the U.S. and will be rolling out to other English-speaking regions within these few weeks. You cannot create club or manage any clubs at the moment too with the Beta version of Clubhouse on Android. You can read the full list of missing features on Clubhouse’s FAQ page.
The team behind Clubhouse is also noting that they will be collecting feedback from the community on the app. In the coming weeks, the team will be fixing all kinds of bugs and add more features before finally releasing the app properly on Google Play Store as a full app. The only thing that they have not changed their stance on is the invite-only system. You have to be invited into the app to sign up for an account. Signing up for the app is free though.
The Clubhouse app will be available in Beta in the U.S. region for now. As Mentioned the app will roll out in other English-speaking regions soon after. If you are keen to get on the platform with existing invites at hand, you can head over to Google Play Store to register as an interested user and be the first Android user when it becomes available in your region.
