Fans in India will be able to watch Sunday’s El Clasico between Real Madrid and Barcelona live and free on Facebook Watch, the social media giant’s streaming platform, La Liga has said. Spain’s top flight signed a landmark deal with Facebook last August which will allow viewers in the Indian sub-continent to watch every game over the next three seasons for free on the social network, although not all matches are streamed live. “As home to the two most-followed sports clubs on Facebook and some of the world’s most iconic footballers, La Liga has a huge global presence on our platform,” Peter Hutton, Facebook’s head of global live sports programming, told Reuters. “Its popularity is notably visible in the Indian subcontinent, so we’re delighted to be able to serve the community of fans there with free, live La Liga matches for the next three seasons. Through the Facebook Watch partnership, La Liga has been able to reach a new and ...

Facebook Bans Four Myanmar Ethnic Rebel Groups Facebook has blacklisted four more of Myanmar’s ethnic rebel groups, the platform announced Tuesday as it struggles to control rampant hate speech, misinformation and incitement on its platform. For years the social media giant has been lambasted for its slow and ineffectual response to incendiary posts, particularly against the country’s Rohingya Muslims. The company has embarked on a huge PR campaign over the last year to prove it is taking action in a country with an estimated 20 million Facebook accounts. The latest rebel organisations to have been banned are the Arakan Army (AA), Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and Taaung National Liberation Army (TNLA). “These armed groups are now banned from Facebook and all related praise, support and representation will be removed as soon as we become aware of it,” Facebook’s news page said. “There is clear evidence that these organ...

Facebook plans to integrate its messaging services on Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. While all three will remain stand-alone apps, at a much deeper level they will be linked so messages can travel between the different services. Facebook told the BBC it was at the start of a "long process". The plan was first reported in the New York Times and is believed to be a personal project of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Once complete, the merger would mean that a Facebook user could communicate directly with someone who only has a WhatsApp account. This is currently impossible as the applications have no common core. The work to merge the three elements has already begun, reported the NYT, and is expected to be completed by the end of 2019 or early next year.