Month: January 2025

Meta has announced it is ending its fact-checking program in favor of a ‘community notes’ system, similar to X’s Community Notes. The social media company (which owns Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp) said in a statement: “we’re replacing fact-checkers with Community Notes, simplifying our policies and focusing on reducing mistakes.”

Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a video: “We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms. More specifically, here’s what we’re going to do. First, we’re going to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X, starting in the U.S.”  Zuckerberg criticized “governments and legacy media” push “to censor more and more… “the recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech. So we’re gonna get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms.”

Joel Kaplan, chief global affairs officer, said in a blog post titled “More Speech and Fewer Mistakes” that the changes will lift restrictions “on some topics that are part of mainstream discourse, and will focus the company’s enforcement on illegal and high-severity violations.” In an updated news release, Meta wrote that it was able to identify posts that might be promoting misinformation based on how people were responding to certain pieces of content and how fast posts would spread. Independent fact-checkers would also work to identify posts with possible misinformation on their own, and posts that were said to include misinformation would then be shown lower in feeds as they waited for review.

Facebook will also be moving its trust and safety and content moderation team from California to Texas: “We’re also going to tune our content filters to require much higher confidence before taking down content. The reality is that this is a trade off. It means we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.”

Meta had also earlier announced the appointment of three new members to its board of directors, including Dana White, the president and CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship (and a staunch ally of President-elect Donald Trump) as well as John Elkann and Charlie Songhurst.  Zuckerberg said in a statement on Tuesday: “Dana, John, and Charlie will add a depth of expertise and perspective that will help us tackle the massive opportunities ahead with AI, wearables, and the future of human connection.” Elkann is the executive chair of auto giants Ferrari and Stellantis and CEO of the investment firm Exor, while Songhurst is a technology investor and a former executive at Microsoft.

Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post that White has built UFC “into one of the most valuable, fastest growing, and most popular sports enterprises in the world. I’ve admired him as an entrepreneur and his ability to build such a beloved brand,’ adding that Elkann has “deep experience running large global businesses and he brings an international perspective to our board.”  White said in a statement that he is “a huge believer that social media and AI are the future. I am very excited to join this incredible team and to learn more about this business from the inside. There is nothing I love more than building brands, and I look forward to helping take Meta to the next level.”

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President Joe Biden has signed a proclamation naming two new national monuments in California, protecting 848,000 acres of land that are of ‘scientific, cultural, ecological, and historical importance.’

The White House said in a statement:  “With today’s designations and yesterday’s actions to protect the East and West coasts and Northern Bering Sea from offshore oil and natural gas drilling, President Biden has now protected 647 acres of U.S. land and water. By designating this new national monument, President Biden is enhancing outdoor access for nearby communities, preserving critical habitat for imperiled and rare species, and ensuring the ancestral homelands and sacred cultural legacies and the region’s Tribal Nations endure for generations to come. All the while demonstrating that clean energy and conservation can go hand in hand. The monument will be managed by the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management.”

According to a White House statement, the Chuckwalla National Monument preserves more than 624,000 acres just south of Joshua Tree National Park. The area holds cultural and historical significance for tribes including the Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, Mojave, Quechan and Serrano. The monument will protect habitats for species including the desert tortoise, bighorn sheep and the Chuckwalla lizard, for which it is named, and will provide outdoor recreation opportunities for nearby poor communities.

The White House said the Chuckwalla monument will allow the construction and expansion of electric transmission lines to transport clean energy to population centers in the West. Renewable energy projects will be able to be developed near or adjacent to the monument. Laura Daniel-Davis, the Interior Department’s acting deputy secretary, said in a statement: “The establishment of Chuckwalla National Monument demonstrates that we can balance conservation and drive toward a clean energy future that serves everyone.”

The Sattitla Highlands National Monument in northern California will preserve 224,000 acres across three national forests. The area is sacred to the Pit River and Modoc tribes, and Brandy McDaniels, a Pit River tribe member who has advocated for the creation of the monument, are welcoming lasting protection: “As tribal people that are socio-economically suppressed, we are constantly faced with corporations that have endless resources to come and exploit and degrade our water resources and our land.”

Per Reuters, the moves are aligned with the Biden administration’s goal of conserving at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030. Under federal law, presidents have the authority to create or alter national monuments in recognition of a site’s cultural, historical or scientific importance, but a designation can be rescinded by a future president.

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Attorneys for President-elect Donald Trump asked a New York judge on Monday to delay his sentencing on Jan. 10 in his “hush money” criminal case.  Trump’s lawyers had again appealed Justice Juan Merchan’s decision to deny Trump’s bids to dismiss the case due to presidential immunity and the demands of the presidential transition period. Merchan had set the sentencing date for this Friday, stating that Trump, 78, would be unlikely to face jail or other legal consequences. Judge Merchan said Trump may appear at his sentencing either in person or virtually.

The ‘hush money’ case involves a $130,000 payment Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels. After a six-week trial in state criminal court in Manhattan, a jury in May found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying records to mask the payment prior to the 2016 election.

Late on Monday, however, the request from Trump’s legal team was denied by Merchan, who wrote that Trump’s arguments “are for the most part, a repetition of the arguments he has raised numerous times in the past,” adding that they “are for the most part, factually distinguishable from the actual record or legally inapplicable.”

On Monday afternoon, Trump’s attorneys filed an appeal with a New York appellate court seeking to overturn Merchan’s rulings that upheld Trump’s conviction. Trump’s lawyers did not ask the appeals court to intervene in the sentencing, but may do so  if Merchan sentences Trump on Friday. Trump’s attorneys wrote in the filing with the appeals court Monday: “Justice Merchan’s erroneous decisions threaten the institution of the Presidency and run squarely against established precedent disallowing any criminal process against a President-Elect, as well as prohibiting the use of evidence of a President’s official acts against him in a criminal proceeding,” (per CNN.)

Trump’s spokesperson Steven Cheung reiterated in a statement to CBS News that Trump’s return to the White House requires “an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and all of the remaining Witch Hunt. The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the state constitution of New York, and other established legal precedent mandate that this meritless hoax be immediately dismissed.”

Sentencing has been delayed repeatedly in the months since – after being initially scheduled for July 11, a Sept. 18 sentencing date was set – and then pushed back after Trump asked to move it until after the election. The new sentencing date for Nov. 26 was delayed again after Trump won the presidential election, and Trump’s team filed another motion to dismiss, saying it was unconstitutional to hold criminal proceedings related to a president-elect.

Editorial credit: Chip Somodevilla / Shutterstock.com