 |
|
|
|||||
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced a major shift in the company's approach to moderation and speech. Meta is ditching its fact-checking program and moving to an X-style Community Notes model on Facebook, Instagram and Threads. Zuckerberg said in a video that Meta has "built a lot of complex systems to moderate content" in recent years. "But the problem with complex systems is they make mistakes. Even if they accidentally censor one percent of posts, that's millions of people." He added that we're now at a point where there have been "too many mistakes and too much censorship." To that end, he said, "we're gonna get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms." That's going to start with a switch to "Community Notes, similar to X, starting in the US." Meta's new Chief Global Affairs Officer (and Clegg's replacement) Joel Kaplan wrote in a blog post that the company has seen the Community Notes "approach work on X where they empower their community to decide when posts are potentially misleading and need more context, and people across a diverse range of perspectives decide what sort of context is helpful for other users to see." The company plans to phase in Community Notes in the US over the next few months and iterate on them over this year, all the while removing its fact checkers and ending the demotion of fact-checked content. Meta will also make certain content warning labels less prominent. Meta says it will be up to contributing users to write Community Notes and to decide which ones are applied to posts on Facebook, Instagram and Threads. "Just like they do on X, Community Notes will require agreement between people with a range of perspectives to help prevent biased ratings," Kaplan wrote. "We intend to be transparent about how different viewpoints inform the Notes displayed in our apps, and are working on the right way to share this information." The Community Notes model hasn't entirely been without issue for X, however. Studies have shown that Community Notes have failed to prevent misinformation from spreading there. Elon Musk has championed the Community Notes approach but some have been applied to his own posts to correct falsehoods that he has posted. After one such incident, Musk accused "state actors" of manipulating the system. YouTube has also tested a Community Notes model. ASSOCIATED PRESS Meanwhile, Zuckerberg had some other announcements to make, including a simplification of certain content policies and ditching "a bunch of restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are just out of touch with mainstream discourse. What started as a movement to be more inclusive has increasingly been used to shut down opinions and shut out people with different ideas, and it's gone too far. I wanna make sure that people can share their experiences and their beliefs on our platforms." When asked to provide more details about these policy changes, Meta directed Engadget to Kaplan's blog post. In addition, the filters that Meta had used to search for any policy violations across its platforms will be focused on "illegal and high-severity violations." These include terrorism, child sexual exploitation, drugs, fraud and scams. For other, less-severe types of policy violations, Meta will rely more on users making manual reports, but the bar for removing content will be higher. "Were going to tune our systems to require a much higher degree of confidence before a piece of content is taken down," Kaplan wrote. In some cases, that will mean multiple reviewers looking at a certain piece of content before reaching a decision on whether to take it down. Along with that, Meta is "working on ways to make recovering accounts more straightforward and testing facial recognition technology, and weve started using AI large language models (LLMs) to provide a second opinion on some content before we take enforcement actions." Last but not least, Meta says it's taking a more personalized approach to political content across its platforms after attempting to make its platforms politically agnostic for the past few years. So, if you want to see more political stuff in your Facebook, Instagram and Threads feeds, you'll have the choice to do so. As with donating to Donald Trump's inauguration fund, replacing longtime policy chief Nick Clegg with a former George W. Bush aide and appointing Trump's buddy (and UFC CEO) Dana White to its board, it's very difficult to see these moves as anything other than Meta currying favor with the incoming administration. Many Republicans have long railed against social media platforms, accusing them of censoring conservative voices. Meta itself blocked Trump from using his accounts on his platforms for years after he stoked the flames of the attempted coup of January 6, 2021. "His decision to use his platform to condone rather than condemn the action of his supporters at the Capitol building has rightly disturbed people in the US and around the world," Zuckerberg said at the time. "We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great." Meta removed its restrictions on Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts last year. Zuckerberg explicitly said that Trump's election win is part of the reasoning behind Meta's policy shift, calling it "a cultural tipping point" on free speech. He said that the company will work with Trump to push back against other governments, such as the Chinese government and some in Latin America, that are "pushing to censor more." He claimed that "Europe has an ever-increasing number of laws institutionalizing censorship and making it difficult to build anything innovative there." Zuckerberg also took shots at the outgoing administration (over an alleged push for censorship) and third-party fact checkers, who he claimed were "too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they created." These are all significant changes for Meta's platforms. On one hand, allowing more types of speech could increase engagement without having to rely on, say, garbage AI bots. But the company may end up driving away many folks who don't want to deal with the type of speech that could become more prevalent on Instagram, Facebook and Threads now that Meta is taking the shackles off. "Now we have an opportunity to restore free expression and I am excited to take it," Zuckerberg said. While he noted that "it'll take time to get this right and these are complex systems that are never gonna be perfect," and that the company will still need to work hard to remove illegal content, "the bottom line is that after years of having our content moderation work focused primarily on removing content, it is time to focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our systems and getting back to our roots about giving people voice." Update January 1, 2:58PM ET: Noting that Meta responded to our request for comment.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-is-loosening-some-content-policies-and-moving-to-an-x-style-community-notes-system-142330500.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
How are you ever going to improve your Elo if you cant stop shivering or sweating in your gaming seat? Razers latest deskside innovation is Project Arielle, a mesh gaming chair with integrated temperature controls and some pretty lights, of course. Project Arielle is built on the foundation of the Fujin Pro, Razers breathable mesh chair, and it uses a bladeless fan system to warm up or cool down the entire frame. A touchscreen panel on the side of the seat offers three fan-speed settings, and lets you swap between cool and warm airflow. The edges of the seat and backrest are lined in a thin ribbon of RGB lights, and these dynamically shift between blue and red as the set temperature changes. The bladeless fan is housed in a cylinder dangling off the base of the backrest like a little stubby tail, and a cable runs from this same area, connected to a sizable power brick. Razer says Project Arielle can reduce the perceived temperature by 2 to 5 degrees C in dry environments, and its self-regulating, energy-efficient heater delivers warm air of up to 30 degrees C (86 degrees F). Razer In action, Project Arielle is surprisingly effective and quiet. I had a chance to experience not just sit in the chair at CES 2025, and it functioned even better than expected. With the warm setting engaged, I felt a breeze of heated air swirl around my head, neck and upper back, and the temperature change was tangible even in a hot room. The cool setting provided instant relief, with the airflow particularly noticeable along my back, neck and under my arms. The fan was noiseless in the demo room, which contained about a dozen people and a handful of laptops and PCs. I strained to hear the fan running in this environment, and even then, it was barely noticeable as a soft hum. As someone whos always chilly, especially in sedentary situations, Project Arielle is an incredibly attractive chair. Instead of piling on sweatshirts and blankets to warm up my frozen bones, Id be happy to just switch on the heating function and bask in the warm air. The cute lights certainly dont hurt, either. Project Arielle is just a concept for now, but Razer has a pretty good track record when it comes to turning its experiments into actual products. Just look at the Project Esther haptic gaming cushion, which debuted at CES 2024 and then went on sale nine months later as the Razer Freyja. Will Project Arielle help boost your rank or shave seconds off your speedrun? Maybe, maybe not. But itll definitely keep you cozy while you try.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/project-arielle-is-razers-first-temperature-controlled-gaming-chair-140053304.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
Withings is at CES yet again, this year showing off its updated blood pressure monitor and a new way for its users to keep their hearts healthy. The Withings BPM Vision, for that is what it is called, is a new tabletop blood pressure monitor designed for home use. It boasts a big, color display the company promises will help make it easier for you to understand whats going on. Like its predecessors, BPM Vision connects to Wi-Fi, instantly uploading your latest data to its cloud platform. But Withings has broken with tradition, using a tabletop design with a connected cuff, rather than the all-in-the-cuff design of the BPM Connect and BPM Core. Concerns around readability likely prompted the change, as it was hard to read the screen strapped to your arm. Withings Withings is also launching Cardio Check-Up, where users can get feedback on their heart health from a board-certified cardiologist. Withings+ subscribers in the US, France and Germany will be able to send readings to a physician once every 90 days. Theyll take a look at the data and check theres nothing to be concerned about, and promise to respond within 24 hours. BPM Vision is expected to be available in the US from April 2025, pending the usual blessing from the FDA. Cardio Check-Up starts today as part of the Withings+ subscription, and can be accessed if you have an annual or monthly payment plan.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/withings-updates-its-blood-pressure-monitor-and-launches-a-cardio-check-up-feature-140046862.html?src=rss
Category:
Marketing and Advertising
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||