Future Beat | The National

Hello there, We're about to enter a new era of social media, or at least that's what we keep hearing from technology analysts. In that new era, we're told that dominant platforms will be replaced by dozens of choices for where we spend our time. If that's the case, why was there such a strong reaction to Meta's announcement that it would be phasing out a major part of its content moderation system? The answer to that remains unclear, but I think it's safe to say that some social platforms will always be more dominant than others, at least for now. We'll discuss it more below. The Big Story In brief | Earlier in the week Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said that his company was going to phase out fact checkers and replace content moderation on Facebook and Instagram with a community notes system similar to X, citing the recent US election. “The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritising speech,” he said in a video posted to Meta's Instagram platform. The announcement from Mr Zuckerberg comes after years of criticism against Meta for not adequately dealing with hate speech , disinformation and other questionable content posted to Facebook and latterly Instagram. Various conservative and libertarian-leaning organisations and individuals welcomed the news, but the backlash from other circles was swift. Some accused Meta of acting irresponsibly and potentially opening the floodgates to hate speech, disinformation and even nefarious content on its platforms. Why it matters | Sure, TikTok has more attention and influence than Facebook right now, but not far behind TikTok you'll find Instagram, owned and operated by Meta, the company at the centre of this content moderation shift. Though his influence isn't as relevant as it used to be, it's still very much Mark Zuckerberg's social media world, and we're just living in it. Meta owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, and between those platforms you'll find about 3.5 billion users around the world . That's why these content moderation changes elicited such a strong response. Social media still matters, and for those who considered some of the platforms safe spaces, that idea was just uprooted. Quoted | “It’s pure cowardice to blame your own employees and independent fact checkers for decisions you made yourself. Fact checkers provide more speech and information, not less. And never made decisions about content. Ever. Your policy and moderation employees, no matter where they live, painstakingly and agnostically produce policy options and escalate them to you and your leadership. You are ultimately responsible for any and every controversial decision that is made. And it is childish and cowardly to imply otherwise. The pound of flesh you give to appease changing political winds should be yours alone” – Olga Belogolova, a former Meta employee , now director of the Emerging Technologies Initiative at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies False promises | Departing FTC chairwoman Lina Khan warns against 'AI hype' Content creator capital | What to expect from the global social media summit Watershed litigation | What does TikTok's final battle mean for social media? Above the clouds | Why the solar power stations of the future could be based in space Despite ambitious global efforts to increase water supplies and bolster agriculture, the US government accountability office is warning that it's proving difficult to estimate the effectiveness of cloud-seeding . This is a signal: Cloud seeding makes headlines and captures the attention of people around the world, and rightfly so. Humans have always sought ways to control the weather, and the idea of safely manipulating the clouds has become a reality … sort of. Meteorology is complicated, and despite progress in the field of cloud seeding and rain enhancement, its effectiveness is inconclusive. That's not to say we should abandon efforts, but rather we need to make sure we're not putting all our eggs in one basket. Is living near an airport hazardous to your health? How an unmanned boat can help save lives on the water What we know so far about OpenAI's artificial general intelligence Why Apple’s $95 million Siri lawsuit settlement raises privacy concerns Will chatbots take over customer service and replace more jobs done by people?