23112022-LSTL-01.qxd 11/22/2022 11:00 PM Page 1 c m y b A PERFECT BIRTHDAY TREAT It’s Naga Chaitanya’s birthday today and the makers of his next film, NC22, treated his fans with the first look poster of the film. Directed by Venkat Prabhu, the upcoming film will be a TamilTelugu bilingual. Krithi Shetty will be playing the female lead. TMS TRIBUNE Life Coming soon Ajay Devgn has shared the teaser of his upcoming movie Bholaa on Instagram. He also wrote, “Kaun hai woh… Jisko pata hai, woh khud laapata hai #BholaaTeaserOutNow...” TMS LUDHIANA | WEDNESDAY | 23 NOVEMBER 2022 Toots or tweets? Good news for RRR fans! Sheetal T For a cause Ayushmann Khurrana joins the likes of global icon David Beckham for raising awareness about child rights Ayushmann Khurrana has joined hands with global icons like David Beckham, Robert Lewandowski, Sergio Ramos, Andriy Shevchenko and Cafu to raise awareness about child rights across the world. “We must all make sure that discrimination based on gender becomes a thing of the past and that every girl is treated with the same value and worth by her family and community as any boy. We can begin by disrupting gender stereotypes in our own lives. Small changes add up over time to make things better,” he said. — IANS WITTER, run by the world’s wealthiest man, Elon Musk, now comes at a price — $8 for blue tick for new as well as existing verified customers. And if that is not enough, reinstatment of Donald Trump’s account has added fuel to fire! We take a look at how other social media websites, such as Mastodon, Tribel Social and Hive Social, have become the alternatives for celebs and others quitting Twitter. THE MASCOT With social media websites such as Mastodon or Tribel Social emerging as viable alternatives to Twitter, users have a host of options to choose from Unlike Twitter’s bird, Mastodon’s mascot is an elephant on a green hill. It resembles a ‘mastodon or mammoth’ belonging to the extinct genus Mammut (family Mammutidae), which inhabited North and Central America during the late Miocene or Pliocene epochs. Tweeting for change A tweet by Elon Musk, ‘Use Signal’, back in January 2021, moved the markets and the shares of not-so-popular Signal Advance, a tech-component manufacturing company, skyrocketed, whereas he had hinted at downloading the message service app Signal, as it let you send encrypted messages. Cut to November 2022, when Musk has himself stepped in to fill the shoes of Twitter CEO, the same users who downloaded Signal are finding replacements for Twitter! These include Mastodon, Social Tribe, Hive Social and Truth Social, besides the already popular ones like Reddit. On Saturday, the official page of Mastodon (@joinmastodon) on Twitter displayed the information: “We have just passed over two million active monthly users, a new record! People are voting with their feet. The future of social media doesn’t have to belong to a billionaire; it can be in the hands of its users.” This pretty much explains its user-friendly model, as it claims to be the largest decentralised social networking platform built on open web standards and not based on any profit motive. This Is Us executive producer Ken Olin wrote, “I’m on @TribelSocial for the rest of the day. Gotta wean myself off of this soon...” Another one, Hive Social (@TheHIVE_Social) tweeted, “1,000,000 besties and the Being different Bhumi Pednekar is slowly but surely making a name in Bollywood. To be seen in a comic thriller Govinda Naam Mera next, Bhumi says, “I’m actually thrilled that film-makers feel I can pull off any role that they offer to me. That is the biggest validation for my work and skill as an artiste. My character in Govinda Naam Mera is different as well.” She adds, “I hate to be put into a mould and constantly look to challenge the status quo. I’m delighted that audiences are loving my character in the trailer.” Bhumi will also be seen in the films Afwaah, Bheed, Lady Killer and Mere Husband Ki Biwi. — TMS UNDERSTANDING MASTODON FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING ■ Right SS Rajamouli’s RRR is one of the biggest blockbusters of this year. The magnum opus starred Ram Charan and Jr NTR in the lead roles. It was written by Rajamouli’s father KV Vijayendra Prasad. RRR is getting a sequel and this has been confirmed by Prasad. Now, there is an exciting update for all the fans. Vijayendra Prasad in a recent interaction said the film’s team had finally ‘cracked the sequel’s premise’. That means fans are likely to get a major update on RRR sequel in a couple of months. Even though Ram Charan and Jr NTR are expected to make a comeback as Sitarama Raju and Bheem, the highly anticipated film might not be an actual continuation of RRR. However, nothing has been confirmed yet. The plot and characters of RRR 2 will be revealed by the makers only after the final draft of the screenplay is locked. Recently, at an event in Chicago, SS Rajamouli confirmed that a sequel of the Ram Charan and Jr NTR-starrer is already in development. He had said, “My father is a story writer for all my films. We discussed a bit about RRR 2 and he’s working on the story.” — TMS Although MIT technologies and Bot Sentinal claim that Twitter has lost around one million users since the ownership change, Musk has not acknowledged the same. “Twitter usage is at an all-time high,” shared Elon Musk, validating it with a chart that showed Twitter’s monetisable daily active users (mDAU) growing rapidly — up from 240 to 255 million since July, while US mDAU alone is up by three million. On the other hand, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also rolled out monetisation tools for Facebook and Instagram users in June this year. It was on a testing phase for just the creators, old and new, in order to get discovered and earn directly. Initially, Meta set out to implement it in 2023, but then it happened earlier than expected. Nevertheless, this monetisation of social networks is inevitable; sooner or later it will happen. Only Musk has a more rogue approach! Or as actress Tara Dublin puts it in a ‘pinned’ tweet on her account, “I am ‘me’ in case Elon Musk decides to take away my blue check because I refused to be extorted to pay back his bad investment #Verified.” after you download Mastodon and click on the create account button, you can pick a server based on the region, interest or the general purpose. ■ These servers are managed by users, but that doesn’t mean your pick (server) will restrict you to message anyone on the micro-blogging site. There are a wide range of categories, such as general, regional, art, music, journalism, activism, LGBT, games, tech, academia, furry, food, among others. ■ Mastodon was first launched in 2016, but the reason why it hasn’t gotten big lies in one of its strengths – decentralisation! Because the community you join puts you in a group. For instance, some have servers for their countries; in the same way, a community could be about people who like cats — mastodon.cats. ■ The updates are called ‘toots’, instead of tweets and the hearts have been replaced by stars. ■ There is no official verification process for profiles on the site. However, the company can verify links on people’s profiles to confirm they are the owners. number keeps climbing! Thank you to everyone who has followed us, joined, shared their Hive posts and profiles, invested in our WeFunder, and overall just given us such an incredible amount of support!” It has reached the Top 20 on US app store and had a weekend surge of one million users. (Inputs by Sukhmani Kooner) The King’s Affection makes history ...Becomes first Korean drama to bag International Emmy Award Period drama The King’s Affection, starring Park Eunbin and Rowoon, has become the first Korean language series to win an International Emmy Award. The 20-episode show, titled Yeonmo in Korean, earned the honour in the best telenovela category at the 50th edition of the annual award gala. It aired on Korean broadcaster KBS2 and on Netflix in selected international regions last year. The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences also made the announcement on its official Twitter page. Other nominees in the cate- c m y b gory were: Nos Tempos do Imperador (Brazil), Two Lives (Spain) and You Are My Hero (China). Set during the Joseon dynasty, when bearing twins was considered a bad omen, The King’s Affection follows the secret life of a princess who is posing to be the Crown Prince after her fraternal twin is killed in childhood. The critically acclaimed drama previously won accolades for its writer at the Seoul International Drama Awards, as well as popularity award for Park and Rowoon at the Korea Broadcasting Awards. — PTI A humble tribute Actor Adil Hussain on Tuesday said the film The Storyteller is a humble tribute to Satyajit Ray, the doyen of Indian cinema. The cast and crew of the The Storyteller was addressing a ‘ Table Talk’ at the 53rd International Film Festival of India in Goa. Adil, who plays a pivotal role, said the film is based on the story of the legendary filmmaker. Adil opined that an actor should travel from his ‘smaller-self’ to the ‘larger self’, so that he can engross himself in the story and character. “To create empathy for a character is one of the biggest qualities of an actor,” he said. — IANS