OYO Reports 20% Rise in India Summer Bookings
Koh Samui's property market is evolving with a surge in condominiums and villa rentals, reshaping pricing and investment dynamics across key submarkets like Bophut, Mae Nam, and Maret. The newly released 2025 Samui Property Market Update by C9 Hotelworks said the island's property market is valued at THB30.3 billion and is transitioning from its traditional villa-centric model towards higher-de
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Forbes
an hour ago
- Forbes
16.8 Million WhatsApp And Facebook Accounts Deleted — Meta's Big Purge
Less than a month ago, on July 18, I reported how Meta had confirmed that not only had 10 million Facebook accounts been deleted, but that the massive account purge would continue. Now, WhatsApp users are starting to understand the implications of this, as Meta has confirmed the deletion of some 6.8 million messaging accounts. Here's what you need to know. Meta Says 6.8 Million WhatsApp Accounts Have Been Deleted — And The Purge Will Continue Billions of people use the combination of Facebook and WhatsApp for their social media and encrypted messaging needs. Millions, however, have had their accounts deleted. On the whole, as I have said before, this is a good thing. How so? The reasoning behind the account deletions is to improve security and safety for everyone who uses either platform. And, oh boy, is that protection required: AI-powered attacks, WhatsApp password hackers, and Facebook scammers are evidence of that. The August 5 Meta announcement confirmed that it is the latter, the scammers, that have prompted the deletion of more than 6.8 million WhatsApp accounts. 'Based on our investigative insights into the latest enforcement efforts,' Meta said, 'we proactively detected and took down accounts before scam centers were able to operationalize them.' A typical example, Meta said, involved a criminal scam center in Cambodia that used ChatGPT to generate convincing text messages that linked to a WhatsApp chat before moving the victim to a Telegram group. This scam involved liking TikTok videos, supposedly in return for payment, but those payments required an initial deposit of cyrptocurrency before they could commence. As well as deleting accounts by the million, WhatsApp has said it is rolling out new anti-scam protections, including a safety overview when you are added to a WhatsApp group by someone not in your contacts, and also alerts when invited to individual chats with someone not in your contacts. 'WhatsApp taking down 6.8 million accounts should be applauded,' Paul Bischoff, a consumer privacy advocate at Comparitech, said, 'but as with any statistic from Meta, we don't really know the full scope of the problem.' Indeed, is 6.8 million really that huge a number for a service with three billion active users? 'Did Meta ban half of the scammers on WhatsApp or just a tenth of them?' Bischoff asked, before answering with 'no one knows, probably not even Meta.' And then, of course, there is the groundswell of users who have taken to platforms such as Reddit and TikTok to complain that their accounts have been suspended or deleted without cause. 'Search meta ban wave on Reddit, Twitter, and TikTok,' one reader emailed me, 'Meta's AI has banned thousands of legitimate accounts without valid reason, and Meta refuses to acknowledge the error.' A Meta spokesperson said, "We take action on accounts that violate our policies, and people can appeal if they think we've made a mistake.' Meanwhile, I would argue that not only is WhatsApp doing the right thing in deleting proven scam accounts, it is doing what needs to be done. If innocent parties are getting caught up in this, as seems likely, then Meta also needs to be taking this more seriously than it would apparently seem to be doing.
Forbes
3 hours ago
- Forbes
Gokongwei, Gotianun JV Seeks To Expand Philippine Airport Operations Amid Travel Boom
A joint venture between JG Summit Holdings and Filinvest Development Corp. is seeking to expand their airport operations to tap into the travel boom. The duo—which runs the Clark International Airport, north of Manila, with Singapore's Changi Airport Group—submitted a proposal to modernize three provincial airports at some of the country's tourist hot spots. It's currently under review, Transportation Secretary Vince Dizon said in the Department of Transportation's website. The partners are proposing to modernize and expand major regional airports in Bicol, Davao and Siargao, Dizon said, adding upgrading these airports will help boost commerce and tourism in these areas. Bicol, south of Manila, is home to Mount Mayon, a volcano known for its perfect cone. Siargao and Davao, both on the southern Mindanao Island, are respectively popular destinations for surfing and Mount Apo, the country's highest peak and habitat to the endangered Philippine Eagle, the world's biggest eagle by length and wing surface area. The Philippine government has been tapping private investors to improve the country's aging airport infrastructure. Aboitiz Equity Ventures runs the Mactan International Airport in the central Philippine island of Cebu, while billionaire Ramon Ang's San Miguel Corp. is spearheading the 170.6-billion-peso ($3 billion) upgrading and expansion of the country's main gateway, the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila. JG Summit, which got its start from a corn starch factory founded by the late billionaire John Gokongwei in 1954, now has interests in airlines, food and beverage, banking, petrochemicals and utilities. His son Lance (who runs JG Summit as its president and CEO) and his sisters have a combined net worth of $1.8 billion, placing them at No. 14 on the list of the Philippines' 50 Richest published this week. Filinvest Development, which was founded by the late couple Mercedes and Andrew Gotianun Sr. as a small financing company in 1995 has grown into one of the country's largest conglomerates with interests in banking, sugar, power and real estate. Their heirs have a combined net worth of $800 million.
Bloomberg
5 hours ago
- Bloomberg
Thai Air Shares Soar to Seven-Year High After Earnings Jump
Thai Airways International Pcl 's shares climbed to the highest level in almost eight years after the state-controlled airline reported that net income for the second quarter soared nearly 39-fold from a year earlier. The carrier rose as much as 10.5% on Friday to the highest intraday level since October 2018, extending its weekly gains to almost 340%. Its market value has reached more than 407.5 billion baht ($12.6 billion), making it the fifth-largest carrier in Asia, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
