Content

Meta abandons fact-checking for ‘community notes’

Independent fact-checkers on Facebook and Instagram will be dropped and replaced by X-style community commentary, where users themselves assess the accuracy of a post. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that third-party moderators were ‘too politically biased’ and that it was ‘time to get back to our roots around free expression’. The move follows the appointment of Republican Joel Kaplan, replacing Nick Clegg as Meta’s head of global affairs. Kaplan said that the use of moderators was ‘well-intentioned’ but had resulted in censoring. Meta will begin testing a new crowd-sourced community notes approach. The new system will allow 20,000 US contributors to write and rate notes across it Facebook, Instagram and Threads platforms. The company is using X’s open source algorithm as the basis of its system. In a blog post, Meta says that it expects community notes to be less biased than the third-party programme it is replacing, partly because the new system requires agreement between different people as opposed to depending on expert organisations. Third-party fact checking will remain in place outside the United States.

Competition

EU reviews big tech investigations in anticipation of ‘Trump pressure’

The European Union is reassessing its investigations into large tech firms, including Apple, Meta and Google as US firms urge President Trump to intervene in what they describe as ‘over-zealous’ EU enforcement. The review will cover cases since March last year and could result in the scaling back or changed remits of investigations; decisions and fines will be paused while the review is completed. Many EU policymakers are urging the European Commission to hold its nerve. The Commission itself is said to be ‘fully committed’ to effective enforcement but wanted to be sure that decisions are ‘legally robust’.

Regulation

Mexico amends plans to abolish telecoms and competition regulators

The Mexican government is on course to disband seven of its independent regulators, including the telecoms regulator, IFT, and competition body, Cofece. However, following concerns over breaching trade agreements with the US and Canada, the latter two will be merged to create a new organisation which, while a part of the economic ministry, will retain technical and operational independence. The constitutional reforms were introduced by the majority MORENA party as a means of reducing costs and increasing efficiency, but the move raised concerns among investors over transparency and the potential for trade disputes.

Chair of UK competition regulator ousted over ‘lack of ideas on growth’

Marcus Bokkerink, chair of the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) since 2022, has stepped down and will be replaced by Doug Gurr, former head of Amazon UK. The move follows what was described as an ‘underwhelming’ presentation on how the organisation was going to promote growth. Chancellor Rachel Reeves had previously said that ‘every regulator, no matter what sector, has a part to play by tearing down the regulatory barriers that hold back growth’.

Artificial intelligence

Indian music labels join copyright action against OpenAI

A group of India’s top Bollywood labels, including T-Series, Saregama and Sony are set to join a legal action launched last year by Indian news agency ANI that claims OpenAI’s ChatGPT used its content without permission. The labels have asked a new Delhi court to hear concerns about the ‘unauthorised use of sound recordings’ in training AI models in breach of copyright. Other book publishers and media groups have also joined the action in India, which is OpenAI’s second largest market.

Privacy

Legal challenges mount against UK’s ‘back door’ demand

Human rights groups have launched a legal challenge after the UK government issued a ‘technical capability notice’ requiring access to iPhone back-ups for law enforcement agencies. Apple had already launched its own appeal, which Privacy International and Liberty argue should be heard in public. In addition they say that ordering the company to compromise the security of its products breaches free expression and privacy rights. In a statement the activist groups said: ‘people the world over rely on end-to-end encryption to protect themselves from harassment and oppression. No country should have the right to undermine that protection for everyone’. Apple has suspended its iCloud Advanced Data Protection System (ADP) in the UK. ADP stores data with end-end-encryption, and the company is unable to access it.

Infrastructure

Meta to build ‘world’s longest cable’

A new subsea cable project, spanning 50,000 km and five continents, has been announced by Meta. No timescale has been given, but the company says that, once complete, ‘Project Waterworth’ will connect the US, India, Brazil, South Africa and ‘several other regions’. Subsea cables are the backbone of global digital infrastructure, accounting for 95 per cent of intercontinental traffic, says the company in its blog, Engineering at Meta. The new project will consist of ‘industry-leading’ subsea cables of 24 fibre pairs (compared to a typical 8 to 16) and is designed to be highly resilient, with much of the deployment in deep water and advanced burial techniques employed in shallow waters to avoid damage.

In brief

Britain can become an AI superpower without walking a US or EU path on regulation, according to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Announcing an ‘AI opportunities action plan’, the Prime Minister promised to create ‘AI growth zones’, a ‘gold standard data access regime’ and national data library, and committed to removing planning obstructions to the development of datacentres.

Ofcom has announced its intention to auction the upper block of the 1.4 GHz band (1492-1517 MHz) for 4G and 5G mobile use. It expects that further deployment of the upper block of the 1.4 GHz band will help improve the performance of mobile services, particularly in areas where coverage is patchy, such as some indoor areas and in remote parts of the UK.

The European Commission is withdrawing a planned AI liability directive as part of a broader push for deregulation. Henna Virkkunen, the Commission’s vice-president in charge of digital policy, said that an upcoming code of practice on AI due in April will limit reporting requirements to existing rules. She denied that this was due to pressure from the US administration and insisted it was part of the EU’s ambition to enhance its competitiveness.

Trade group NetChoice won a preliminary injunction when a federal district court ruled that the California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act could violate free speech rights under the constitution’s First Amendment. The group claimed the law would have made its members, including Amazon, Google, Netflix and Meta, ‘censor the internet under the guise of privacy’.

Fibre networks and municipal broadband networks could get less funding under new plans resulting from the change of administration in the US. The $42 billion BEAD (Broadband, Equity, Access and Deployment) program is overseen by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). The US government has nominated a new head, Arielle Roth, who has suggested that the program has been ‘loading up all kinds of burdens that deter participation in the program and drive up costs’.

Social media platforms in scope of the UK’s Online Safety Act will now face significant fines for failing to implement safeguards as the Act’s new provisions come into force. From 17 March, sites will be required to take steps to ensure that illegal content doesn’t appear or to take it down once it goes online.

Sources: The Financial Times, Reuters, APNews, Euronews, Euractiv, US News, CNN,  TechCrunch, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, Bloomberg, The Economic Times, BBC, Politico, Telecoms.com