Meta has announced that it is replacing its third-party fact-checking program with a user-driven “Community Notes” system, similar to the one employed by X (formerly Twitter).

This change was detailed by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Global Affairs Officer Joel Kaplan, signaling a significant shift in content moderation strategy on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. Here’s what you need to know:

End of Third-Party Fact-Checking: Meta is discontinuing its fact-checking program with independent third parties in the United States, citing the political bias of fact-checkers and the excessive amount of content being fact-checked.

Community Notes Implementation: Starting in the US, Meta will introduce a system where users contribute notes to provide context or corrections to posts, akin to X’s Community Notes. This is intended to empower the community to address potentially misleading content, with notes requiring approval from users with diverse perspectives to be visible to all.

Policy Simplification: Alongside this, Meta aims to simplify its content policies, reducing restrictions on topics like immigration and gender, which have been contentious. The company plans to focus its automated systems more on high-severity violations such as terrorism, child sexual exploitation, and scams, rather than on a broad set of content.

This move comes after the 2024 U.S. presidential elections, which Zuckerberg described as a “cultural tipping point” towards prioritizing free speech. There’s an underlying political dimension to this decision, with some viewing it as an alignment with conservative critiques of content moderation as censorship.

The change has elicited mixed reactions. Some applaud it as a return to free expression, while others, including misinformation researchers, fear it might lead to an increase in misinformation.

The rollout of Community Notes in the U.S. will begin over the next couple of months, with plans to refine the system throughout the year.

This shift is part of Meta’s broader strategy to reduce the complexity of its content moderation systems, which they argue have led to too many mistakes and censorship. Critics worry about the potential for less accurate information control, whereas supporters see it as enhancing user autonomy and expression.

Apple has agreed to pay $95 million to settle a lawsuit accusing the company of using its Siri virtual assistant to eavesdrop on users of iPhones and other Apple devices.

The lawsuit, which has been ongoing for five years, claims that Siri recorded conversations without user consent, even when the device wasn’t intentionally activated by the “Hey, Siri” trigger phrase. The recordings were allegedly shared with advertisers to tailor ads to consumers based on their conversations.

The settlement, filed in an Oakland, California federal court, covers consumers who owned Siri-enabled devices from September 17, 2014, to December 31, 2024.

If approved by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, eligible users could receive up to $20 per device, with a cap of compensation for five devices per individual.

However, the actual amount might vary depending on the number of claims filed, with an estimated participation rate of only 3% to 5% of eligible consumers.

Apple denies any wrongdoing as part of this settlement but has agreed to compensate affected users.

The settlement amount is significantly less than the potential $1.5 billion in damages that could have been awarded if the case had gone to trial and Apple was found liable for violations of wiretapping and privacy laws.

A hearing to review the settlement terms is proposed for February 14, 2024 in Oakland.

Mbah Amadou, a young Cameroonian who hails from the North region has invented a water-powered generator which electrifies his home. Discovered by Steve Fah, the generator was tested in his very own eyes and it powered two fans, an air-condition and a TV.

“This inspiration came as a revelation. With the problems my mother faced, since she was going cold products”. He said, he has been working on the project for the past 4 years and it costed him over 13 million francs to finally succeed. He says he can power the whole village with the water-generator but what he lacks now is proper investment.

The genesis of hydropower became an electricity source in the late 19th century, a few decades after British-American engineer James Francis developed the first modern water turbine. In 1882, the world’s first hydroelectric power plant began operating in the United States along the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin.