Adam Mosseri further clarifies position about news on Threads
Instagram and Threads Chief Adam Mosseri posted on Threads to clarify what people perceive to be suppression of news on the platform.
I don’t believe the IG team and especially leadership are sneaky or malicious in any way but it’s difficult to see this statement and take it at face value.
@aulia it was one of his inane responses to people asking threads to moderate the hate speech coming at trans folks. He had some blather about friends will say mean things to each other but it’s all fun and threads is not about to stop such innocent tomfoolery.
Monopolies aren’t illegal but using monopolistic practices to the detriment of consumers is. Millions are hoping for Live Nation and Ticketmaster to go eat dirt. https://flip.it/YU4kDh
The UK deserves better than Sunak and Starmer. They can do the funniest thing and vote both of them out in the next election, forcing Labour to find another leader in parliament https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-69016719
Microsoft’s investment in Indonesia for cloud computing and AI development happens to coincide with DailySocial’s pivot to AI and business consulting.
Microsoft’s AI Odyssey program aims to assist 10,000 AI developers in the country
There are 3.1 million developers from Indonesia on GitHub with a growth of 31% year on year in 2023
AI related projects in the country grew more than 2x in 2023
The wider commitment in AI skills and education programs is expected to impact 840,000 people in the country through various programs and opportunities
It also dwarves Apple’s $100 million investment in four developer academies.
So long, DailySocial. There goes Indonesia’s longest running tech industry blog. I broke a lot of stories and broke down moronic government policies with them for a few years which gave me a bit of reputation among the startup and government circles.
The new company ownership and structure will focus on the consultancy and research part of the business, shutting down the media side. This also means leaving the Djarum portfolio of companies under its GDP media group.
Indonesia’s customs office has been under fire this past week thanks to a few cases going viral.
First case was someone being charged 3x the value of the shoes he bought online. Customs said because there was a mistake in item value entered into the system by the sender (under invoicing) the recipient is now liable for the $1800 fine.
Second was a toy influencer receiving their self transforming Megatron toy two weeks late, damaged box, opened by customs, and being given a runaround by the customs office. He was supposed to be part of a global unboxing event last week. A special staff to the finance ministry responded on X but he got piled on due to bureaucratic speak and evasive responses. Customs also charged him based on the price for the Grimlock model which is twice as much.
Third one, prototype equipments for a special needs school given by a South Korean company has been held by customs since 2022 because the school hadn’t paid the import tax bill totaling more than $6,000. There’s no price available online because it’s a prototype so the office decided the value on their own. The school got tired of explaining and gave up in January 2023. Finance Minister made a statement on Instagram yesterday on expediting the process and dropping all fees.
All of these cases were resolved only after they went viral on X.
It’s really funny that the two major parties backing Anies Baswedan for presidency have given the clearest signals that they will support Prabowo.
The expansion of the Advance Indonesia Coalition means that the President-elect will have the backing of the majority of the next parliament, leaving the current party in opposition, PKS, and the current ruling party, PDIP, potentially in opposition together for the next five years.
My cousin is in Kuala Lumpur for a few days and many locals who interact with him (shopkeepers, street vendors, service workers, etc) get visibly upset or annoyed when they have to speak in English to him because he doesn’t understand Malay.
Look, just because we’re of similar ethnicities and we speak Indonesian doesn’t mean we speak or understand Malay easily! Your accents are mostly alien to us especially when you use local terms and speak fast.
You try coming over to Jakarta or Surabaya and listen us speak in our casual street language pattern. Unless you watch Indonesian movies or shows or listen to our songs you’re not gonna understand us easily either. Malay pop culture and language don’t get exposure here outside of Upin Ipin. That’s the extent of Malay culture we know.
And stop thinking we’re also Malays because we are not. Our cultures and languages are not a single circle, it’s a Venn diagram.
I’m at an accessibility workshop where they ran audits of the home or main pages of several high profile Indonesian websites and apps including Shopee, RuangGuru Skills Academy, Lapor, MRT Jakarta, and Traveloka.
All were eviscerated for their lack of compliance to WCAG standards across all platforms preventing blind consumers from using them effectively even with assistive technology. Between 40-75% non compliance in major and critical categories.
In most cases they severely lack keyboard support and labels for navigation and no alt text for images or unhelpful/irrelevant alt text in place. Content structure tend to be unusable using screen readers across most sites. Most banking sites don’t tend to implement accessible KYC process which is a blocker for most blind customers trying to create accounts online.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is in Indonesia this week, meeting with the President and other government ministers to discuss investment plans, meet with local creators, visit the Apple Developer Academy just outside of Jakarta, and apparently eat sate ayam.
Points from local media coverage and Presidential press conference:
• Indonesia manufactures 50 million smartphones a year, imports 2.8 million.
• Indonesia imports around $2 billion worth of iPhones a year (gives a unit cost of over $800), 85% of all imported phones.
• Apple invests around $100 million to set up and run Developer Academies in the country, 4th site expected to open early next year in Bali. The other two are in Batam and Surabaya.
• The existing three Developer Academy sites have produced around 2,000 graduates.
• Ministers mentioned supply chain manufacturing and adding local share of components (currently 2/360) to the iPhone.
• Apple has met the local content requirement threshold of 35% for smartphones through Developer Academy investments but in 2026 this increases to 40%.
• The Coordinating Minister for Investments has been tasked to oversee all the steps to ensure the country meets Apple’s supply chain, manufacturing, and other investment requirements.