Meta scraps third party fact checkers – and UFC boss Dana White joins board
Meta is scrapping its third party fact-checking service in the US after nine years and replacing it with a “community notes” system, similar to the one used by X.
It says it will help promote free expression and stop harmless content from getting taking down.
Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg suggested in an online video that recent events including Donald Trump’s victory in the US election helped inform the change.
“The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritising speech,” he said,.
Users on sites such as Facebook and Instagram will be able to highlight posts that could be misleading and need more context – instead of leaving it to outside organisations and experts.
“Experts, like everyone else, have their own biases and perspectives. This showed up in the choices some made about what to fact check and how… A program intended to inform too often became a tool to censor,” Meta said.
Analysis:
Zuckerberg shows his true pragmatic colours
It said the current system was “making too many mistakes, frustrating our users and too often getting in the way of the free expression”.
“Too much harmless content gets censored, too many people find themselves wrongly locked up in ‘Facebook jail’, and we are often too slow to respond when they do,” said the company.
It means fact-checked content will no longer be demoted and instead there will be a label notifying users there’s additional information – with this written and rated by users.
Agreement between people with a range of perspectives will be a fundamental part of the system to help prevent biased ratings, according to a statement.
Currently, there are full-screen warnings that must be clicked through before a fact-checked post can even be seen.
Meta said the third party system was the “best and most reasonable choice” in 2016, but things had changed.
It said community notes works well on X and allows “people across a diverse range of perspectives decide what sort of context is helpful for other users to see”.
Community notes will be rolled out in the US over the next few months and the model will be improved during the rest of the year.
UFC boss White joins Meta board
On Monday, Meta announced UFC boss Dana White had joined its board of directors.
Mr Zuckerberg said White was joining alongside car industry tycoon and Ferrari chairman John Elkann and British tech investor Charlie Songhurst.
Dana White is joining Meta’s board and is friends with the incoming president. Pic: AP
White is known for being friends with Donald Trump, and the pair are often seen ringside at the UFC’s mixed martial arts events.
He’s also spoken several times at Republican conventions events and whipped up the crowd during a Trump rally during the last election campaign.
The appointment could prove helpful for Meta’s relations with the incoming president.
Mr Trump and Meta had strained relations after the 2020 election, with Mr Trump accusing the company of suppressing content that would have hurt Joe Biden.
Donald Trump was also banned from Facebook after the US Capitol riots 2021 – but the decision was reversed a year later.
In a statement, Mr Zuckerberg – who also practises mixed martial arts – said White has built the 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,” he added.
Read more from Sky News:
Donald Trump’s victory certified by defeated rival Kamala Harris
Plaza says death of filmmaker husband ‘unimaginable tragedy’
White said he had never been interested in joining a board of directors until he got the call from Meta.
“I am very excited to join this incredible team and to learn more about this business from the inside,” said the UFC mogul. “There is nothing I love more than building brands, and I look forward to helping take Meta to the next level.”
White’s appointment comes a few days after it was revealed former Republican White House deputy chief of staff Joel Kaplan would take over from Nick Clegg as Meta’s president of global affairs.
That move was also seen by many as trying to position the company favourably for the next presidency.
At least 51 people have died after heavy rain caused flash flooding, with water bursting from the banks of the Guadalupe River in Texas.
The overflowing water began sweeping into Kerr County and other areas around 4am local time on Friday, killing at least 43 people in the county.
This includes at least 15 children and 28 adults, with five children and 12 adults pending identification, Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said at a news conference.
In nearby Kendall County, one person has died. At least four people were killed in Travis County, while at least two people died in Burnet County. Another person has died in the city of San Angelo in Tom Green County.
People comfort each other in Kerrville, Texas. Pic: Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle via AP
Large piles of debris in Kerrville, Texas, following the flooding. Pic: Reuters//Marco Bello
An unknown number of people remain missing, including 27 girls from Camp Mystic in Kerr County, a Christian summer camp along the Guadalupe River.
Rescuers have already saved hundreds of people and would work around the clock to find those still unaccounted for, Texas governor Greg Abbott said.
But as rescue teams are searching for the missing, Texas officials are facing scrutiny over their preparations and why residents and summer camps for children that are dotted along the river were not alerted sooner or told to evacuate.
AccuWeather said the private forecasting company and the National Weather Service (NWS) sent warnings about potential flash flooding hours before the devastation, urging people to move to higher ground and evacuate flood-prone areas.
Debris on the banks of the Guadalupe River in Hunt. Pic: AP Photo/Julio Cortez
An overturned vehicle is caught in debris along the Guadalupe River. Pic: AP
The NWS later issued flash flood emergencies – a rare alert notifying of imminent danger.
“These warnings should have provided officials with ample time to evacuate camps such as Camp Mystic and get people to safety,” AccuWeather said in a statement that called Texas Hill County one of the most flash-flood-prone areas of the US because of its terrain and many water crossings.
But one NWS forecast earlier in the week had called for up to six inches of rain, said Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management.”It did not predict the amount of rain that we saw,” he said.
Officials said they had not expected such an intense downpour of rain, equivalent to months’ worth in a few short hours, insisting that no one saw the flood potential coming.
One river near Camp Mystic rose 22ft in two hours, according to Bob Fogarty, meteorologist with the NWS’s Austin/San Antonio office. The gauge failed after recording a level of 29.5ft.
A wall is missing on a building at Camp Mystic in Hunt, Texas. Pic: AP/Julio Cortez
Bedding items are seen outside sleeping quarters at Camp Mystic. Pic: AP/Julio Cortez
A Sheriff’s deputy pauses while searching for the missing in Hunt, Texas.Pic: AP/Julio Cortez
“People, businesses, and governments should take action based on Flash Flood Warnings that are issued, regardless of the rainfall amounts that have occurred or are forecast,” Jonathan Porter, chief meteorologist at AccuWeather, said in a statement.
“We know we get rain. We know the river rises,” said Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s top elected official. “But nobody saw this coming.”
Judge Kelly said the county considered a flood warning system along the Guadalupe River that would have functioned like a tornado warning siren about six or seven years ago, before he was elected, but that the idea never got off the ground because “the public reeled at the cost”.
A drone view of Comfort, Texas. Pic: Reuters
Officials comb through the banks of the Guadalupe River in Hunt, Texas. Pic: AP/Julio Cortez
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was asked during a news conference on Saturday whether the flash flood warnings came through quickly enough: “We know that everyone wants more warning time, and that is why we are working to upgrade the technologies that have been neglected for far too long.”
Presidential cuts to climate and weather organisations have also been criticised in the wake of the floods after Donald Trump‘s administration ordered 800 job cuts at the science and climate organisation NOAA, the parent organisation of the NWS, which predicts and warns about extreme weather like the Texas floods.
A 30% cut to its budget is also in the pipeline, subject to approval by Congress.
Read more from Sky News:
Elon Musk says he’s created his own political party
Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ passes final hurdle in Congress
Professor Costa Samaras, who worked on energy policy at the White House under President Joe Biden, said NOAA had been in the middle of developing new flood maps for neighbourhoods and that cuts to NOAA were “devastating”.
“Accurate weather forecasts matter. FEMA and NOAA matter. Because little girls’ lives matter,” said Frank Figliuzzi, a national security and intelligence analyst at Sky’s US partner organisation NBC News.
Elon Musk says he has created a new political party – the America Party –
after asking his followers if he should do so in an online poll.
It follows his public falling out with Republican President Donald Trump.
On Friday, the billionaire had asked his followers on X whether a new US political party should be created.
On Saturday evening he wrote on the same platform: “By a factor of 2 to 1, you want a new political party and you shall have it!
“When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy.
“Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Trump threatens to ‘put DOGE’ on Musk
The world’s richest man made the announcement just one day after President Trump signed a tax-cut and spending bill into law on Friday, which Musk had fiercely opposed.
Musk had previously said we would form and fund a new political party to unseat lawmakers who supported the bill.
From bromance to bust-up
The Tesla boss backed Trump’s election campaign with more than a quarter of a billion dollars, later rewarded with a high profile role running the newly created department of government efficiency (DOGE).
But observers of the two men, both with huge wealth and reputations, wondered how long the bromance would last.
Donald Trump gave Musk a warm send-off in the Oval Office in May. Pic: Reuters
In May Musk left the role, still on good terms with Trump but criticising key parts of his legislative agenda.
After that, the attacks ramped up, with Musk slamming the sweeping tax and spending bill as a “disgusting abomination” and Trump hitting back in a barbed tit-for-tat.
Trump earlier this week threatened to cut off the billion-dollar federal subsidies that flow to Musk’s companies, and said he would even consider deporting him.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike