More moderation: Facebook is looking at new ways to moderate posts on its site to make it more difficult for election disinformation to spread, the New York Times reports. Facebook is looking at adding more “friction,” such as an additional click or two, before users can share posts, according to insiders in the company. The new measures were expected shortly.
Millions without access: About 63 percent of rural residents in Latin America and the Caribbean – 77 million people – have little or no access to Internet services, according to a study by the Inter-American Development Bank and Microsoft, Nearshore Americas says. By comparison, about 71 percent of urban residents in the region have access to the Internet.
Bracing for regulation: Residents of Nigeria are expecting the government to move to regulate social media after recent protests, Quartz Africa on Yahoo reports. “We must regulate social media in a manner that it does not become a purveyor of fake news and hate speech,” Nigeria’s minister of information Lai Mohammed said recently. “We will not fold our arms to allow purveyors of fake news and hate speech to use the social media to destabilize the country.”
Right to repair: Campaigners across the European Union are rallying around the right to repair their electronic devices, which some see as a greener alternative than buying new devices, Euronews says. However, it may be an uphill battle. The European Parliament committee on the internal market and consumer protection recently failed to impose stricter rules on manufacturers, such as mandatory labels to indicate the lifespan and the repair potential of each product.
Restore the access: Free Expression Myanmar has called on the government there to restore mobile phone access in the Rakhine and Chin states, KrAsia says. About 1.4 million residents of western Myanmar were denied access in the days leading up to a Nov. 8 election.
More privacy: California voters have strengthened its recent consumer privacy law, which will make it harder for companies like Facebook and Google to collect personal data from users, Business Insider reports. The new provisions will set tighter restrictions on how websites track users data and sell it to advertising partners.
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