Coinciding with the return of Donald Trump to the US presidency, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp has announced it's abandoning the independent fact-checking processes set up in 2016 in favour of a 'community notes' program, as used on Elon Musk's X platform, where the community decides which posts are misleading or need more context.

Last week the world had a taste of the kind of chaos which was predicted, but failed to eventuate, 24 years ago. This time the millennium bug couldn't be blamed. Instead, a tiny human coding error temporarily paralysed banks, airports, media outlets and other organisations around the planet, connected by the cloud of data that binds us all.

Australia’s Federal Court has granted the eSafety commissioner a two-day legal injunction to compel X, Elon Musk’s social media platform, to hide posts showing graphic content of the Wakeley church stabbing in Sydney.

In a new transparency report released by Australia’s eSafety Commissioner, information provided by X Corp., the owner of social media platform Twitter/X, indicates the company has made deep cuts to safety and public policy personnel, with serious implications for online hate in Australia and around the world.