INTERNET

 NPR - Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced yesterday that the company, which owns Facebook and Instagram, would stop working with third-party fact-checkers. The company established these extensive partnerships after the 2016 presidential election in order to slow the spread of false information. Meta’s move comes as Republicans on their way into power discuss cracking down on tech companies. The 2020 election and the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated backlash to this feature among conservatives, who expressed that it was a form of censorship.

Meta will replace its fact-checking with a “community notes” program similar to Elon Musk’s X, where users write and rate notes that appear next to a specific post, NPR’s Bobby Allyn tells Up First. Restrictions on topics like immigration and gender identity will also be lifted. It’s an understatement to say these actions are a big reversal, Allyn says. Zuckerberg stated that speech is being censored on Meta’s platforms, an allegation he had previously fought against. The more lax rules come after several developments, including Meta donating $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural fund.

Robert Reich - Make no mistake. This is all about currying favor with Trump before he takes over on January 20. Trump has long railed against Zuckerberg, claiming Meta’s fact-checking is unfair to conservatives.It’s also about dealing with Elon Musk, who’s busily positioning X to be a right-wing megaphone. Zuckerberg doesn’t want to be outflanked on the right. 

Hartmann Report -   Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg (wearing a $900,000 watch) announced yesterday morning that across their over-7-billion-user-strong social media empire — Facebook, Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp — they’ll be dialing back on fact-checking. They’re also preparing to promote more “political” content (among other changes that support those two moves, like no longer filtering out trash-talking queer people or immigrants, and moving what’s left of their Trust & Safety team from liberal California to conservative Texas). Here’s the problem: Republican politicians rely on lies, distortions, and falsehoods to sell most of their policies and candidates. 

They must do this because the reality of their actual goals (cut billionaire taxes, increase pollution, gut worker and consumer protections, defund schools and medical care, privatize and cut Social Security and Medicare, subsidize oil companies, outlaw abortion, etc.) are so repellent to most Americans. The Democratic Party, on the other hand, has been shockingly scrupulous for decades about telling the truth, at least with regard to policy. The last “big lie” I can remember coming from the Dems was LBJ’s claiming that North Vietnam had attacked us at the Gulf of Tonkin. And that was 60 years ago!

I did a search for “Democratic lies” using 2 different AI programs, Google, and DuckDuckGo. The worst I could find — none of which are consequential or even real, actual, or oft-repeated lies — were, according to those search sites:

— Only the rich will pay more taxes under proposed policies.
— A transition to green energy won’t cost any jobs.
— Sanctuary cities reduce crime rates universally.
— Social media platforms primarily suppress left-wing voices.
— Trump’s Project 2025 wasn’t actually Trump’s project.
— Expanding federal funding for education guarantees improved student outcomes.
— Kamala Harris falsely claimed Trump encouraged Putin to invade U.S. allies.
— Harris mischaracterized a border security bill as the "strongest in decades."
— Tim Walz falsely attributed a quote about ruthless use of power to JD Vance.
— Illinois Governor JB Pritzker misleadingly claimed Trump told people to drink bleach for COVID-19.
— Electric vehicles are affordable and practical for all Americans, regardless of income or location.

On the other hand, those same sources handed me this (partial) list of actual and destructive-to-democracy-and-society lies that are regularly told and promoted by Republicans in pretty much every venue and show up every Sunday on the political shows:

— The 2020 election was stolen.
— Global warming isn’t real or important.
— Giving tax cuts to billionaires helps average working people.
— Biden “opened” our southern border for four years.
— Democrats encourage illegal immigrants to vote.
— Social Security is a Ponzi scheme that’s going broke and can only be fixed by cutting benefits or privatization.
— A national healthcare system like every other advanced democracy in the world has won’t work in America.
— Free or inexpensive college doesn’t benefit the nation, but student debt builds “individual responsibility.”
— The Democratic Party is filled with sexual monsters and child predators who drink blood.
— Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and Afghanistan was responsible for 9/11.
— The United States was founded as a Christian nation, and the Founding Fathers intended it to be governed by biblical law.
— Critical Race Theory is being taught in elementary schools to make white children feel guilty.
— Cutting corporate taxes leads to higher wages for workers.
— Climate change policies are an attack on the economy and personal freedom.
— Gun control laws lead to higher crime rates.
— Wind and solar energy are unreliable and will destroy the energy grid.
— LGBTQ+ rights threaten religious freedom and the safety of children.
— Voter fraud is a widespread problem in the United States.
— Democrats want to abolish the police and create lawless “anarchy zones.”
— Universal basic income or expanded welfare programs discourage hard work.
— Raising the minimum wage will destroy small businesses and increase unemployment.
— Public schools are indoctrinating children with Marxist and homosexual ideologies.
— The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) caused massive job losses and economic ruin.
— Immigration is the primary cause of crime and drug trafficking in the U.S.
— The January 6th insurrection was a peaceful protest.
— Unions are corrupt and hurt workers more than they help.
— Democrats are pushing to remove God and religion from American society.
— The mainstream media is entirely biased and acts as a propaganda arm for the Democratic Party.
— Raising taxes on the wealthy will hurt small businesses and destroy the economy.
— Abortion is murder, and Democrats support killing babies even after birth.
— Medicare and Medicaid are unsustainable and should be privatized.
— America’s biggest national security threat is China, not climate change.
— Universal background checks for gun purchases are a slippery slope to gun confiscation.
— The U.S. military is being weakened by “woke” policies and diversity initiatives.
— Public health measures during pandemics, like masks and vaccines, are a government overreach and an attack on personal freedom.
— The Green New Deal will eliminate cows, airplanes, and American jobs.
— The COVID-19 vaccine is part of a government tracking or depopulation program.
— Teachers’ unions are destroying education by prioritizing their own interests over students.
— Democrats want to eliminate suburbs through urban housing policies.
— Cutting capital gains taxes helps working Americans and stimulates the economy.
— The U.S. has the best healthcare system in the world, and any changes would make it worse.
— Climate scientists are exaggerating or fabricating evidence to get government funding.
— Most Americans support banning books and other restrictions on teaching controversial topics.
— Homelessness is caused by laziness and bad personal choices, not systemic issues like housing costs and investment operations.
— DEI, Affirmative Action, and similar programs are a form of “reverse racism” that discriminates against white people.
— Black immigrants eat white people’s dogs and cats.
— January 6th was an inside FBI operation, a Democratic Party Antifa operation, or both.

Mat Honan, Technology Review- We all know what it means, colloquially, to google something. You pop a few relevant words in a search box and in return get a list of blue links to the most relevant results. Maybe some quick explanations up top. Maybe some maps or sports scores or a video. But fundamentally, it’s just fetching information that’s already out there on the internet and showing it to you, in some sort of structured way. 

But all that is up for grabs. We are at a new inflection point.The biggest change to the way search engines have delivered information to us since the 1990s is happening right now. No more keyword searching. No more sorting through links to click. Instead, we’re entering an era of conversational search. Which means instead of keywords, you use real questions, expressed in natural language. And instead of links, you’ll increasingly be met with answers, written by generative AI and based on live information from all across the internet, delivered the same way. 

Of course, Google—the company that has defined search for the past 25 years—is trying to be out front on this. In May of 2023, it began testing AI-generated responses to search queries, using its large language model (LLM) to deliver the kinds of answers you might expect from an expert source or trusted friend. It calls these AI Overviews. Google CEO Sundar Pichai described this to MIT Technology Review as “one of the most positive changes we’ve done to search in a long, long time.”

AI Overviews fundamentally change the kinds of queries Google can address. You can now ask it things like “I’m going to Japan for one week next month. I’ll be staying in Tokyo but would like to take some day trips. Are there any festivals happening nearby? How will the surfing be in Kamakura? Are there any good bands playing?” And you’ll get an answer—not just a link to Reddit, but a built-out answer with current results. 

More to the point, you can attempt searches that were once pretty much impossible, and get the right answer. You don’t have to be able to articulate what, precisely, you are looking for. You can describe what the bird in your yard looks like, or what the issue seems to be with your refrigerator, or that weird noise your car is making, and get an almost human explanation put together from sources previously siloed across the internet. It’s amazing, and once you start searching that way, it’s addictive.  MORE